PLEA Network

4 April 2016, Science Daily, Water cycle instability is here to stay posing major political and economic risks. Adaptation to new risks: A vital necessity for development policies. The current instability and unpredictability of the world water cycle is here to stay, making society’s adaptation to new risks a vital necessity when formulating development policies, a UN water expert warns. Robert Sandford, the EPCOR Chair for Water and Climate Security at the United Nations University’s Canadian-based Institute for Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH), says long-term water cycle stability “won’t return in the lifetime of anyone alive today.” “What we haven’t understood until now is the extent to which the fundamental stability of our political structures and global economy are predicated on relative stability and predictability of the water cycle — that is, how much water becomes available in what part of the year. As a result of these new water-climate patterns, political stability and the stability of economies in most regions of the world are now at risk.” Ontario Lieutenant-Governor Elizabeth Dowdeswell, a former Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme, and UN Under Secretary-General David Malone, Rector of UN University, are among several expert speakers joining Sandford in Ottawa Tuesday April 5 at UNU-INWEH’s day-long 20th anniversary public seminar, “Water: The Nexus of Sustainable Development and Climate Change.” The seminar will focus on national policy changes needed worldwide to achieve global water security — a pre-requisite for reaching the new global Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, agreed upon by world leaders in September 2015. Read More here