FloodsDroughts
Three ways great water solutions can address climate change
- Blog By Isis Palay, Communications and Knowledge Management Intern, IWMI Climate change is one of the most serious crises facing humanity. Not only is it causing a rise in global temperature and increasing extreme weather events, but it is also acting as a catalyst for many other major issues, such as water access and distribution. Photo: Seersa Abaza / IWMI Since the 1980s, ...more
World Water Day 2021
- World Water Day 2021 This year’s World Water Day (March 22) theme is ‘Valuing Water’. At IWMI we are highlighting the value of water as central to all systems that underpin human life. Water is crucial when addressing the key challenges faced by the world today from climate change and environment to health and global hunger.The knowledge that will underpin solutions ...more
Choosing the collective: Challenging conventional ideas of women's leadership
- Blog By Deepa Joshi, Lead, Gender, Youth and Inclusion, IWMI and Alan Nicol, Strategic Program Director - Water Growth and Inclusion, IWMI Photo: Neil Palmer / IWMI This year, the dual themes of International Women’s Day are ‘Women in Leadership’ and ‘Choosing to Challenge’. Putting the two together, we at IWMI are choosing to challenge conventional ideas of women’s leadership. Challenging conventional approaches ...more
Three ways wetlands can influence climate change
- Blog By Isis Palay, Intern, communication and knowledge management (CKM) department, IWMI Woman washing her feet after her daily chores, at the Anawilundawa lake in Sri Lanka. Photo: Shaoyu Liu / IWMI In 2015, villagers living around Myanmar’s Irrawaddy delta watched the storm clouds roll in. Cyclone Komen triggered some of the worst flooding the region had ever seen, submerging the delta ...more
Ramsar Convention and the wise use of wetlands: rethinking gender equality and inclusion
- Blog By Deepa Joshi, Gender, Youth and Inclusion Lead, WLE and Sanjiv de Silva, Senior Regional Researcher – Natural Resources Governance, IWMI Photo: Holly Holmes/World Fish Center The Ramsar Convention, an international, intergovernmental convention promoting the wise protection and sustainable use of wetlands, was founded in 1971. However, it wasn’t until 2018 that a resolution on gender was added to the convention. ...more
Everything you need to know about water and migration
- Interview with an expert (series) Blog Irrigation in drought-hit Gujarat. Photo: Hamish John Appleby / IWMI Most of us know someone who has migrated. Maybe a relative moved to a new country to be closer to family, or left in search of different job opportunities. There are around 272 million migrants in the world today, which is around 3.5 percent of the ...more
IWMI receives the 2020 GEO Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Award
- Blog The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has been awarded the 2020 GEO Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Award in the Special Category of Innovation linked to SDG Target 13.1. This is in recognition of the Index-Based Flood Insurance (IBFI) product developed by IWMI scientist Dr Giriraj Amarnath, Research Group Leader – Water Risks to Development and Resilience (WRDR). He accepted ...more
Tapping into the ground to counter floods and droughts
- Blog By Faiz Alam, Researcher - Water Resources/Agricultural Water Management (IWMI) and Paul Pavelic, Senior Researcher – Hydrogeology (IWMI) A scientist measuring the water collected from a pond created under the Underground Taming of Floods for irrigation (UTFI). Photo by Prashanth Vishwanathan / IWMI IWMI has conducted a global assessment of a means to better capture and store water from flooding for ...more
Why nations must prepare for natural disasters amid the current Covid-19 pandemicÂ
- Giriraj Amarnath, Research Group Leader – Water Risks and Development Resilience (WRDR), International Water Management Institute (IWMI) A farmer harvesting flood-tolerant rice crop as part of IWMI's bundled insurance project in Bihar, India. Photo: IWMI Even a Hollywood scriptwriter would think twice about combining a pandemic with another natural disaster. Yet, this is a scenario currently facing governments around the world. ...more
Index-Based Flood Insurance: Helping Bihar's Agricultural Communities
- The state of Bihar is India’s most flood prone state. An IWMI led Index-linked flood insurance program supported by CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS), Water, Land and Ecosystems (WLE) and Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), has delivered real benefits to help alleviate crop loss through floods and has strong potential for scalability. Look ...more
New project brings five African countries together to jointly manage region’s groundwater
- Media Release (Pretoria/Colombo, 8 April 2021) – The five Partner States of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) have joined forces with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) to manage groundwater resources spanning an area larger than Austria and Germany. Photo: Xueliang Cai / IWMI Groundwater and aquifers are increasingly playing a role in supplying reliable water supplies to dispersed ...more
World Water Day 2021
- World Water Day 2021 This year’s World Water Day (March 22) theme is ‘Valuing Water’. At IWMI we are highlighting the value of water as central to all systems that underpin human life. Water is crucial when addressing the key challenges faced by the world today from climate change and environment to health and global hunger.The knowledge that will underpin solutions ...more
Ramsar Convention and the wise use of wetlands: rethinking gender equality and inclusion
- Blog By Deepa Joshi, Gender, Youth and Inclusion Lead, WLE and Sanjiv de Silva, Senior Regional Researcher – Natural Resources Governance, IWMI Photo: Holly Holmes/World Fish Center The Ramsar Convention, an international, intergovernmental convention promoting the wise protection and sustainable use of wetlands, was founded in 1971. However, it wasn’t until 2018 that a resolution on gender was added to the convention. ...more
Can you hear me? Covid-19 and building women’s resilience in northern GhanaÂ
- Blog Esther Wahabu, Research Officer – Social Sciences, IWMI, Accra, Ghana Women planting onions in the Upper East Region of Ghana. Photo: Hamish John Appleby Covid-19 has been a huge barrier to women’s empowerment, both in the global north and the global south. In both regions, women have found themselves suddenly away from the workplace and back in the home, responsible for ...more
Everything you need to know about water and migration
- Interview with an expert (series) Blog Irrigation in drought-hit Gujarat. Photo: Hamish John Appleby / IWMI Most of us know someone who has migrated. Maybe a relative moved to a new country to be closer to family, or left in search of different job opportunities. There are around 272 million migrants in the world today, which is around 3.5 percent of the ...more
Success despite Covid: Hope from a Water Users Association in Central Myanmar
- Blog By Marie-Charlotte Buisson, Petra Schmitter and Nyan Thiha Since last year, we had enough water and vegetables to procure a good income as long as I get water, so I will continue this year again. The impact Covid-19 has had on farmers has been devastating. Harvest delays due to mobility restrictions, reduced availability of labor and variability in output and input price ...more
Everything you need to know about Race To Zero and COP26
- Blog Today is water day of the Race To Zero November dialogues, part of a global campaign initially designed to drum up momentum ahead of COP26. A farmer tends to her maize crop at Phat Sanday, Cambodia. Photo: Neil Palmer / IWMI IWMI’s Dr Rachael McDonnell and Dr Giriraj Amarnath will be presenting a showcase during the event, which has the theme ...more
IWMI receives the 2020 GEO Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Award
- Blog The International Water Management Institute (IWMI) has been awarded the 2020 GEO Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Award in the Special Category of Innovation linked to SDG Target 13.1. This is in recognition of the Index-Based Flood Insurance (IBFI) product developed by IWMI scientist Dr Giriraj Amarnath, Research Group Leader – Water Risks to Development and Resilience (WRDR). He accepted ...more
Mainstreaming technology provides key solutions for disaster risk mitigation
- Giriraj Amarnath, Research Group Leader – Water Risks and Development Resilience (WRDR) Barti Devi from Gaya district, Bihar holding the bundle of harvested drought-tolerant rice crop from the 2019 Kharif season provided through the BICSA project. Photo: IWMI The recently published World Water Development Report 2020 (WWDR 2020) highlights current impacts and anticipated future risks associated with extreme weather events, and ...more
MENAdrought: Tackling drought in Jordan, Lebanon and MoroccoÂ
- By Louise Sarant, IWMI consultant, MENAdrought Photo: Hamish John Appleby / IWMI The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has been plagued with a water deficit for centuries, and is recognized as the driest region in the world. Despite a high water variability among countries in the region, with some receiving more rainfall and others better equipped to capitalize on ...more