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As part of the first Dutch-Palestinian cooperation forum, 5 Dutch and 5 Palestinian universities signed a Memorandum of Understanding for an academic cooperation programme on joint education, research and training to improve the capacity in the Palestinian water sector.
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In a rare example of cooperation Israel, Jordan and the Palestinians agreed on a water-supply arrangement to slake rising cross-border demand, a step toward economic integration despite persistent political rancor holding up progress on a Middle East peace accord. The deal also aims to slow the steady decline in the Dead Sea water level through a pipeline that will be built from the Red Sea. It is one of the few regional cooperation projects surviving from the heyday of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the 1990s, when many envisioned a Middle East remade by economic interdependence.
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On 25 November 2013 at the UN Headquarters, UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova, and the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), Michel Jarraud, signed an agreement on reaffirming the long term cooperation between the two Organizations in the field of hydrology and water resources. While maintaining respective programmes in line with their fields of competence, the two Organizations recognized the necessity of close cooperation between their work on freshwater, and expressed their common determination to maintain and develop this collaboration in water sciences and water resources.
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Marianne Schuerhoff, Hans-Peter Weikard and David Zetland have published their paper «The life and death of the Dutch Groundwater tax» in Water Policy. In the framework of our UNESCO-related groundwater governance meeting in March 2013 we could offer you a pre-release of the paper already. The authors examine the Dutch national groundwater tax — a “win-win-win green tax” that promised to simultaneously provide revenue to government, reduce the relative burden of other taxes on productive behaviour (e.g., income tax), and improve environmental outcomes.
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LeRoy Poff and John Matthews have just published an interesting paper on «Environmental flows in the Anthropocence (sic!): past progress and future prospects». Human modification of the global hydrologic cycle through the building and operation of hundreds of thousands of dams and diversions has significantly altered fluvial processes, leading to impairment of river ecosystem function and biodiversity loss worldwide. The concept of environmental flows (e-flows) emerged to mitigate the undesirable hydrological impacts of dams and water diversions, in order to strengthen ecologically informed water management. In their paper, the authors outline the scientific foundations and progressive development of the current e-flows framework over the last 25 years, identifying three discrete periods in its history: emergence and synthesis, consolidation and expansion, and globalization.
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The important role played by mountains in freshwater supply and regulation justifies their reputation as Water Towers of the world. They are home to the headwaters of the world’s major rivers, and about 40% of the population depends indirectly on mountain resources for water supply, agriculture, hydroelectricity and biodiversity. Mountains are among the most sensitive ecosystems to climate change and are being affected at a faster rate than other terrestrial habitat, putting their integrity and the services they provide at risk. In view of the urgent need for adaptation strategies and policies, an exhibition and High-level Panel Session was organized during UNESCO’s General Conference to share experiences, views and recommendations on coping with climate change impacts on water resources in mountainous areas.
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The flow of terrestrial groundwater to the sea is an important natural component of the hydrological cycle. This process, however, does not explain the large volumes of low-salinity groundwater that are found below continental shelves. There is mounting evidence for the global occurrence of offshore fresh and brackish groundwater reserves. The potential use of these non-renewable reserves as a freshwater resource provides a clear incentive for future research. But the scope for continental shelf hydrogeology is broader and is is envisaged that it can contribute to the advancement of other scientific disciplines, in particular sedimentology and marine geochemistry. A new article in Nature by Vincent E.A. Post, Jacobus Groen, Henk Kooi, Mark Person, Shemin Ge and W. Mike Edmunds.
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On 6 December 2013, Perry de Louw will defend his PhD thesis on «Saline seepage in deltaic areas – Preferential groundwater discharge through boils and interactions between thin rainwater lenses and upward saline». More than 50% of world’s population lives in coastal areas and is largely dependent on fresh groundwater resources for domestic, agricultural and industrial purposes. However, in many coastal areas, groundwater is brackish to saline which may pose problems for the sustainable exploitation of fresh groundwater. In low-lying coastal areas that lie below mean sea level, saline groundwater may reach the surface by upward groundwater flow. This process is referred to as «saline seepage» and is the main subject of this PhD thesis.
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Presented by the Netherlands and the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), a side event on 22 November 2013 at the UNFCCC COP-19 in Warsaw, moderated by Karin Lexén, SIWI, provided an informal platform to explore how increased coherence on adaptation can be achieved and how cooperation between Parties and stakeholders can be strengthened to support enhanced action on adaptation at all levels.
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