The World Water Council, in cooperation with the Mexican Government, has launched a new book, published by Springer, entitled “Increasing resilience to climate variability and change: The role of infrastructure and governance in the context of adaptation.” The publication presents results from 11 case studies from around the world included in the Council’s program, which was initiated at the end of 2014.
Findings from the studies allow the formulation of recommendations that can help governments and competent authorities shape future approaches for water storage and management, in particular through investments, planning, policy and governance frameworks that consider long-term perspectives, multi-sector and multi-level actor needs and perspectives.
“While humanity experiences increasing demographic and socioeconomic stresses, recent episodes of extreme climate around the world bring additional complexities in finding solutions to reduce these stresses. Water is one of the most impacted resources, but water also provides solutions to these challenges. It is key in mitigating and adapting to uncertainty, both now and in the future,” highlights Benedito Braga, President of the World Water Council and Secretary of State for Sanitation and Water Resources for the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
“It is a testimony of the ongoing global efforts to reduce the vulnerability of the population and infrastructure faced with an increasingly evident and extreme climate change,” says LL.M. Roberto Ramírez de la Parra, Director General of the National Water Commission of Mexico (CONAGUA), about the work.
“A word of caution is that fundamental infrastructure that is built to store and regulate water under normal years may not be as efficient under climate change conditions, where extreme events are expected to increase,” warns Dogan Altinbilek, Chair of the Steering Committee for the program and Vice-President of the World Water Council. Indeed, to be effective, water infrastructure needs to be part of a governance framework that considers multisector needs and multilevel actors in the longer term, addressing political, economic, social, environmental, as well as cultural questions.
