DATE / TIME:

2017•09•20    14:00 - 16:00

Location:

Hamburg

While good water quality is directly addressed in SDG 6 on clean water, it also impacts the achievement of other Sustainable Development Goals, such as those on combating hunger (SDG 2) and ensuring good health (SDG 3). Likewise, the quality of water is affected by various conditions and dynamics from climate change to socioeconomic developments.

Identifying good qualitative status of waters is not straightforward; a major challenge is identifying the right set of water quality indicators. While many indicators have been developed, their applicability and feasibility to support the SDGs under various natural and social conditions requires further consideration and development.

A workshop — organised by the UNU Institute for Integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources (UNU-FLORES) for the 8th Water Research Horizon Conference 2017 — will address this issue by discussing two research topics:

• Water quality indicators and SDGs: Do we know which sets of indicators are relevant to measure water quality in terms of different goals, such as providing water for drinking purposes, agricultural production, energy production, or industrial use, and the interaction among these?
• Water quality indicators and their context (factors and their dynamics): Do we know in which way the numerous effects of climate change and other context factors (e.g., capacities of public authorities) impact the usefulness and future reliability of indicators?

For more information on this workshop, see the event announcement on the UNU-FLORES website.