Posted on March, 19 2018

During the 8th World Water Forum in Brasilia, WWF is joining forces with a group of environmental organisations to showcase how nature can provide cost-effective, long-term water security to communities, cities and regions throughout the world.

Along with Conservation International, IUCN, Wetlands International, The Nature Conservancy and Forest Trends, WWF is collaborating on the Nature-Based Solutions pavilion at the Forum, showcasing nature-based solutions that are improving water security – and with it food, climate, health, human displacement, and biodiversity - around the world.

Achieving water security is fundamental to sustainable economic and human development; and managing natural infrastructure for water security can support the delivery of many – if not all – of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Today, an estimated 1.7 billion people living in the world’s largest cities depend on water flowing from source watersheds sometimes located hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometers away.

Unfortunately, many lands around the world are not always managed well, leading to impaired downstream water quality and diminished flows. Deforestation, poor agricultural practices and other land uses have caused moderate to high degradation in 40 percent of the world’s urban source watersheds.

Rather than restoring these degraded watersheds, solutions to our water quality and quantity challenges have typically been met with the addition of grey infrastructure—including aqueducts, reservoirs and treatment plants—to move and treat water for human and industrial purposes.

The Nature-Based Solutions pavilion will host workshops, training sessions and talks from global experts to share experience, tools and successful models of the power of natural in.