The commemoration of World Water Day dates back to the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which proposed declaring a date dedicated to this issue. The General Assembly decided to designate March 22, and since then it has been celebrated on this date.
Access to safe drinking water is a right that, together with access to sanitation facilities, drives development. However, about one-third of the world’s population does not use safely managed drinking water services and only two-fifths have access to reliable sanitation services. By it this year the motto of the Day Worldwide of the Water is “No leaving no one behind”, reflecting the goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Biodiversity and ecosystem services are fundamental to materializing the vision of a world with water security, which is why the Biodiversity Foundation supports projects related to water. We have allocated almost 4 million euros to 83 projects, of which 9 are in execution.
We highlight the work carried out by the University of Cádiz to reduce evaporation losses and improve the state of aquifers under a context of climate change in the Barbate river basin. This project, after identifying trends from historical data, proposes various adaptation strategies based on greater knowledge derived from fieldwork and systems modelling to increase the availability and improve the quality of water resources; It also proposes the analysis of the impact of various management alternatives on aquatic ecosystems.
Ecosystems regulate the availability and quality of water, its degradation increases water insecurity and harms biodiversity. In this area, the Associació La Sabina is developing a project in temporary Mediterranean ponds. These habitats have environmental problems, pressures and negative impacts on their biodiversity, which harms the quality and water retention capacity of important pools for steppe birds and amphibian populations, the latter in generalized decline.
Along these lines, the Balmes University Foundation has also launched a project that focuses on the conservation and restoration of temporary Mediterranean ponds. These systems, of high biodiversity, are very vulnerable to anthropic impacts and climate change and are considered a priority habitat of community interest. However, they are little-known ecosystems and generally undervalued by the population.
The Columbares Association works in the Segura basin, where eight River Nature Reserves have been declared that have a rich natural heritage, inhabited by species such as the fartet, the common trout, the southern horn and barbel, the otter and the native crayfish. Regarding the flora, oleanders, tamarisk trees, palm trees (endemic species of the Iberian Peninsula), shrubby willows, ash trees, poplars, and alder groves stand out, formations with a high conservationist value in the context of the Iberian southeast. The objective of the reserves is to conserve the rich natural heritage that these river stretches have.
Finally, the Associació Hàbitats is developing a project to learn about and conserve river ecosystems through volunteering in Catalonia. Where each group of volunteers aims to analyse a stretch of river by taking a series of measurements that indicate its ecological status. With the results obtained, the RiusCat Report is prepared.
