Opening speech Elaine Alwayn Groundwater Governance project, , The Hague

Transcription

1 Opening speech Elaine Alwayn Groundwater Governance project, , The Hague Excellencies, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome First, let me welcome you to the Netherlands and to The Hague in particular. There may be no better place and moment to discuss Groundwater Governance and it s contribution to water security in our effort to make the world a more sustainable place to live. We are at the eve of the High Level Forum on Water in the post development agenda and the Celebration of World Water Day on Water Cooperation, later this week here in The Hague. Water security covers a wide range of areas: Pro-active strategies to decrease the effects of Floods and Droughts. The crucial role that water resources play to secure our future demand for food and energy. Or the importance of drinking water and sanitation in diminishing diseases and infant mortality. And a just allocation of water is more and more a prerequisite for building peace.

2 The Netherlands and Water governance For the Netherlands prevention of floods has been a primary focus for a long time. With almost one-third of The Netherlands lying below sea level. 1, almost two-thirds of the country vulnerable to flooding. 2 These are the areas where most of our people live and where most of our GDP is earned. In The Netherlands we have learned this lesson over the centuries. Water-related cooperation (governance) runs through the veins of our country. In the thirteenth century, long before there was a Kingdom of the Netherlands, Dutch citizens were organized around independent Water Boards.. In the past centuries we gained a lot of knowledge about keeping our delta safe and how to organize this. This knowledge is of course important for our own future. We always need to keep it up to date. And we need to remain innovative so we can deal with both our present and future challenges. The Netherlands and Groundwater governance What might be less known to the world is that, despite the over abundance of surface water, the Netherlands also makes full use of its groundwater resources: Roughly 2/3 of all drinking water in the Netherlands is produced from groundwater. Only in the western part of the Netherlands the drinking water supply largely depends on surface water instead of groundwater, because in the western part of our country the natural occurrence of groundwater is saline. 1 Precies: 28%. 2 60%.

3 But even in this part we make use of aquifers by infiltrating river water and retrieving it later as groundwater, thereby making full use of the filtration and storage capacity of the subsurface: An example of early days Managed Aquifer Recharge, which has been in use since the 1950 s. There are many more interesting examples of groundwater management and groundwater governance in the Netherlands which I am sure you will hear more about in the next few days. The use and dependence on groundwater as a resource is likely to increase worldwide, including in The Netherlands. Because of population growth, increasing urbanization and the increasingly important role of groundwater to secure food-security, proper management and governance of groundwater at all levels of government (from local to the transboundary level) is crucial to allocate sufficient quantity and quality for all uses, including ecosystems. The Netherlands and UNESCO/IGRAC Dependant as we are on shared transboundary water resources, we know from our own experience: the importance of shared principles, information and knowledge. It is with this background that The Netherlands supports and participates in the work of our International River basins organizations and that we are an active member of the UNECE Water Convention, in which these principles are laid down.

4 It is also the context within which we are supportive to the two other pillars: capacity building and knowledge sharing. The Netherlands hosts two important UNESCO water institutes in the Netherlands: UNESCO-IHE, UNESCO s institute for water education and IGRAC: UNESCO s global groundwater centre. Both contributing to the work of UNESCO s International Hydrological Programme (IHP). As chair of IGRAC s Governing Board I am pleased to see IGRAC s active involvement in global groundwater programmes like this Groundwater Governance Consultation Project. Based on the conviction that the world s groundwater resources cannot be managed properly without sufficient knowledge of the groundwater system, IGRAC s focus has been on collecting, processing and especially sharing of information and knowledge on groundwater, a very significant building block for the governance of groundwater. Closure As mentioned before, this consultation is very timely. We need to bring groundwater to the surface! and I see this as one of the goals of the Groundwater Governance Consultation Programme Let us ensure that the results of this consultation feed into - the work of the open working group on the SDG s, which started in New York last week. - And even more obvious: into the High Level Forum on Water in the post-2015 development agenda and the Celebration of World water Day, later this week in The Hague.

5 I wish you all three very productive days and I am looking forward to recognizing the action oriented out-comes of this Groundwater Governance Consultation reflected in the SDG on Water.