The Commission aims at coordinating and representing the interest of the Swiss hydrology in the national and international committees and organisations.more

Image: thomasfuer, photocase.demore

UN-Water Summit on Groundwater 2022

Venue

UNESCO
7 Pl. de Fontenoy
75007 Paris

Meeting place

On site or online

The UN-Water Summit on Groundwater 2022 aims to bring attention to groundwater at the highest international level. The Summit will use the UN World Water Development Report 2022 as a baseline and the SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework as a guideline to define actions towards more responsible and sustainable use and protection of this vital natural resource. The Summit will unify the statements from all major water-related events in 2022 into one comprehensive groundwater message for the UN Water Conference 2023.

mountains river stream bed grey alder alluvial forest
Image: M. Bolliger

Groundwater is a vital resource that provides almost half of all drinking water worldwide, about 40 per cent of water for irrigated agriculture and about 1/3 of water required for industry. It sustains ecosystems, maintains the baseflow of rivers and prevents land subsidence and seawater intrusion. Groundwater is an important part of the climate change adaptation process and is often a solution for people without access to safely managed water.

Despite these facts, groundwater, as an ‘invisible’ resource, is out of mind for most people. However, as surface water availability decreases (due to human activities and climate change), reliance and pressure on groundwater will continue to grow. In many places, human activities over-use and pollute groundwater. In other places, we simply do not know how much water is down there. Meanwhile, water scarcity is increasing, already affecting about 2.7 billion people around the world for at least one month per year.

Background

In January 2019, UN-Water set the theme of World Water Day 2022 as groundwater. The UN World Water Development Report 2022 focused on the same topic. In March 2021, UN-Water endorsed the proposal to organize a Groundwater Summit in December 2022 at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, as a contribution to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the SDG 6 Global Acceleration Framework. Subsequently, a Task Force for the organization of the World Water Day celebrations and the Groundwater Summit was set up, coordinated by UNESCO and IGRAC.

Venue

The UN-Water Summit on Groundwater will take place on 7 and 8 December 2022 at UNESCO Headquarters in Paris, France, and is planned as a hybrid meeting with the most possible on-side presence.

Categories

  • Adaptation
  • Change
  • Drinking water
  • Groundwater
  • Human
  • international
  • Rivers
Please be aware that registration for the Summit is free of charge, but the Organisers are not in a position to cover travel or accommodation costs on this particular occasion.
Languages: English