Rivers

SIWI – Leading expert in water governance
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Why Water
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Rivers

Groundwater

Groundwater is the regulator of the entire freshwater cycle, but its invisibility makes it difficult to manage and protect.

Water governance

Good water governance is key to achieving water security, fairly allocating water resources, and avoiding disputes.

Water cooperation

Water is a growing concern in many parts of the world. Countries can improve their water resilience through transboundary water cooperation over shared waters.

Water and climate

The climate crisis is essentially a water crisis. When we treat it as such, we get new tools to mitigate climate change and adapt to consequences that are unavoidable.

In 2015, the global community launched the 2030 Agenda, with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that should be reached by 2030. Some progress has been made, but for most of the goals, the world is not on track to meet the deadline. Water can help us do better.

Water scarcity

Insufficient supply and inadequate infrastructure leaves millions of people in the world without water.

Agriculture and water

How to increase the productivity of agriculture around the world through better water management.

The impact of COVID-19

The global COVID-19 pandemic has pushed millions of people back into poverty and exposed unacceptable gaps between the rich and the poor. One in three people are still not able to wash their hands with soap and water at home.

Water and conflicts

Will future wars be fought over water? The answer is probably no, but water scarcity can contribute to conflicts.

Indigenous knowledge

Indigenous peoples are the custodians of many of the world’s most fragile and important ecosystems. They also possess invaluable knowledge about sustainability and resilience, so they have a vital role in protecting our environment.

Source-to-Sea

The source-to-sea approach focuses on the strong connection between what happens on land, along waterways, and in the sea.

Water in landscapes

A growing number of people, societies and companies are discovering the power of resilient landscapes. It is still possible to shift to more sustainable practices that recharge water, restore soil health, sequester carbon, and strengthen biodiversity – but we need to make the transformation now.

Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)

More than two billion people in the world lack safely managed drinking water and twice as many lack safely managed sanitation, making WASH one of the most urgent development challenges.

While we all depend heavily on rivers for our survival, many rivers are under constant threat from unsustainable human activities

PERSPECTIVES

Youth and water

More and more young people offer important contributions to solving the growing water challenges they are inheriting.

Human rights and water

Having access to water and sanitation has been recognized as a human right since 2010. But water is also essential to ensuring the fulfilment of many other rights.

Gender and water

To improve water governance, we need to take a close look at gender roles.

Rivers are the arteries of the world. They provide life as they wind their way from source to sea. But just like our bloodstream, if they are restricted, damaged, or polluted, the conditions for life will take a dramatic turn for the worse.

Rivers are also connectors. For millennia, they have served as freshwater sources, transport routes, and borders between peoples, regions, and countries. Rivers have a significant impact on the shaping of the landscape, they help us generate electricity, and they support cities and rural areas alike.

Rivers rise and fall in response to rainfall or snowmelt. They are inherently dynamic, spreading out into floodplains, then shrinking during dry seasons. The plants and animals that live in and beside rivers have adapted to these seasonal changes. They rely on them for their survival. So, any modifications to the natural variations of rivers lead to devastating loss of biodiversity.

While we all depend heavily on rivers in one way or another, many rivers are under constant threat from unsustainable human activities. Upstream factors such as development, careless or uninformed use, and pollution all contribute to the deteriorating state of rivers and ecosystems.

The problems do not stop there.

As rivers flow through the landscape, they carry with them the impact of upstream activities, which sometimes severely damage downstream ecosystems and communities as a result.

This crucial but often overlooked connection between what we do on land and along rivers, and the effect this may have further downstream, along coasts and in the ocean, is often referred to as source-to-sea. It is a key concept for acknowledging the importance of the world’s rivers.

From a strictly geographical point of view, rivers are sometimes seen as dividers as they often make up regional and national borders. This means, however, that a river also becomes a shared resource. So, more important than the separation of two parties is the fact that the opposite sides have a mutual interest in maintaining a healthy river.

Rivers also connect communities along their courses, and this means people must find ways to interact and cooperate around shared water resources. This interconnectedness is a challenging situation, but the risks of disputes and conflicts over shared water are often over-reported. Fruitful cooperation is, in many cases, far more realistic.

To remain healthy, the world’s rivers need our attention.

The relationship between what happens upstream and downstream must be thoroughly understood, and the impact from our activities on land and in the water must be analyzed and modified. Both development and use must take all relevant factors into account on equal terms: economic as well as social and environmental. Only then can we save our rivers and ecosystems.