Submitted by guest blogger on Wed,03/21/2018

Post by: Inger Andersen, IUCN Director General

From Cape Town to Bangalore, water shortages are a growing global menace, driven by rising demand worldwide and a warming climate. As the search for practical, cost-effective solutions intensifies, we cannot afford to ignore the important contribution nature offers to addressing the global water crisis. This is why the critical role of nature-based solutions is highlighted as the theme of this year’s World Water Day.

Sobradinho Hydroelectric reservoir in northeast Brazil

Climate change is pushing already overstretched water supplies to the limit. Cape Town’s residents are currently enduring a devastating drought; the 2015 drought in São Paolo forced 9 million Brazilians to ration water. Around the world, one in four of the biggest cities is suffering from water stress.

In fact, water scarcity already affects more than 40% of the global population. According to the UN, our dwindling water resources are increasingly contaminated by pollutants from intensive agriculture, industrial production, mining, urban runoff and wastewater. Meanwhile, our water needs continue to grow, projected to rise by 30% by 2030.

Given the bleak and urgent context, it is not surprising that the global

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Submitted by guest blogger on Mon,03/19/2018

Post by: Yolanda Kakabadse, an Ecuadorian environmentalists and Chair of the Rio Doce Panel

In the long term, it pays for business to use natural resources in a way that benefits all of society. Efforts to rehabilitate the Rio Doce watershed in Brazil following the 2015 mining disaster are a case in point, writes Yolanda Kakabadse, Chair of the Rio Doce Panel, which will provide advice on the restoration efforts, as the 8th World Water Forum opens in Brasilia this week.

The Candonga Reservoir downstream of the dam site was heavily affected by the spill.

Read this blog in Portuguese , Spanish or French

In November 2015, disaster struck near the town of Mariana in Brazil.  The Fundão tailings dam at the Samarco mine failed, spilling water, mud and debris 650km down the Rio Doce, eventually reaching the Atlantic Ocean. The collapse and mudslide killed 19 people, caused severe economic and social damage for communities living along the Rio Doce, and affected fish and other aquatic life. We don’t yet know the full extent of the damage it caused to critical ecosystems and water resources. However, we do know it was one of the country’s worst environmental disasters.

Today, the Rio Doce still carries high levels of sediment from the spill,

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