The meeting was organised by the Hellenic Ministry for the Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works, Greece, lead country of the MED EUWI, jointly with the French Ministry for Ecology, Energy, Sustainable Development and Town and Country Planning, with the coordination of the European Commission, and served as a preparatory meeting for the upcoming Euro-Mediterranean Ministerial Conference on Water, scheduled for 29th October 2008 in Amman, Jordan, the objective of which is inter alia to define a Mediterranean Water Strategy promoting the conservation of water resources, the diversifying of water provision resources and the efficient and sustainable use of water.
The meeting aimed in particular at discussing and providing guidance for the finalisation of the first drafts of four theme papers on key issues prepared in view of the Ministerial Conference. These theme papers, the first two of which were prepared with the active contribution of the MED EUWI Secretariat, explore respectively (i) Water Governance in the Mediterranean, (ii) Integrating the Climate Change Dimension into Water Resources Management in the Mediterranean (iii) Optimising Water Financing and (iv) Water Demand Management and Efficiency and Non-Conventional Water Resources.
The draft theme paper on climate and water provides an overview of the main issues, challenges and current approaches with respect to water and climate changes adaptation in the region and aims to fuel reflection on the way forward. It stresses the consequences of climate change forecasted to be severe in the Mediterranean, with phenomena such as recurrent and persistent droughts, high variability in precipitation, serious decrease of soil moisture, river flow decrease, extreme weather events, desertification, sea level rise, that will heavily impact on freshwater availability in terms of quantity and quality. It also underlines the need for adaptation strategies to be developed and measures to be taken as soon as possible so as to help people to manage their water basins and ecosystems in a sustainable way.
The second theme paper on water governance provides an overview of the main issues, challenges and current approaches with respect to the theme in order to fuel reflection on the way forward. With water crisis being recognised as primarily a crisis of governance, effective water governance in an IWRM context is a critically important prerequisite for meeting current and future water challenges at the regional, national and local levels. The paper reviews the water situation in the Mediterranean, briefly highlights the country-by-country status of water governance -covering all the countries surrounding the Region, portrays the main issues pertaining to the issue of water governance and proceeds with suggestions on the way forward.
Besides providing specific recommendations on the four aforementioned themes, the Water Directors also concluded that since water culture appears as a cross cutting issue, there is a need to include preliminary activities in any regional action to raise the level of awareness among national stakeholders ensuring the wide acceptance of a future water strategy for the Mediterranean.
The Water Directors furthermore recommended that, in addition to quantitative elements and water scarcity concerns, a comprehensive water strategy needs to address restoration and conservation of water and overall quality objectives, aquatic ecosystems and the services provided by the latter as well as marine pollution.
More information can be found in www.minenv.gr/medeuwi and www.medaquaministerial2008.net