Water management

Water management encompasses several major topics including water quality and pollution, water quantity and flooding, water scarcity and droughts. Water is one of the key components for sustaining life, securing agricultural production and industrial activity, and ensuring health and well-being. Climate change brings more uncertainty to occurrence of extreme conditions such as flooding (excess of water) and periods of droughts (lack of water) which can impact water availability and security, and human activities can further contribute to pollution of watercourses and over-extraction of water reserves.

Water distribution and access to water can become a political issue as the key recourse, especially in times of conflict. Ensuring environmental flows (water necessary for functioning of healthy ecosystems) brings additional layer of uncertainty.Water governance has been a widely discussed topic globally. It encompasses political, social, economic and administrative systems that influence who, when and how uses the water and who has the right to water and related benefits. Good governance of water ensures the risks related to water scarcity, pollution and flooding are addressed.

There are two UN SDGs goals explicitly related to water: SDG 6: Clean water and sanitation addressing availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation, and SDG 14: Life below water targeting the sustainable use the oceans, seas and marine resources. SDG 13: Climate action among its targets aims at building resilience and adaptive capacity to climate related disasters and can be directly attributed to water related extreme events. However, being an overarching theme, water is key to meeting many other goals and targets such as those related to health and wellbeing, justice, sustainable cities and communities, and food security.

NBS can contribute to all aspects of water management at different scales including addressing water quality and pollution, flooding, groundwater recharge. In the urban environment, NBS can simultaneously deliver benefits associated with water management (both quality and quantity), biodiversity, health and wellbeing. Larger scale NBS such as riparian vegetation and wetlands aid in reducing the extent of floods and contribute to biodiversity as well as carbon sequestration. NBS for water management are one of the most well-studied interventions and there are documented impacts and developed best practices for their implementation [1], [2]. NBS are recognised as key solutions for ensuring holistic water management by the UNESCO Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme 2022-2029.