World Water Day 2022
The UN World Water Day was celebrated across the globe on March 22nd, 2023. This year saw an extremely important turning point for the water agenda because it was the first time in over 40 years that the United Nations hosted an intergovernmental water conference to address the water crisis humanity is facing. Delegates from 105 countries, as well as intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, were present. Its purpose was to avoid a water crisis at the end of the century. At the end of the week, it was announced that a breakthrough response to the global water crisis, with governments, businesses, and civil society committing billions of dollars to advance the water agenda, a dealmaker for accelerating sustainable development overall. It’s early days yet but we will be following actions and commitments closely in the forthcoming months. More here: https://bit.ly/3TJuLK5
On a national scale many local environmental networks, water groups, environmental charities, and bodies shared the theme of the day Accelerating Change. The DCU Water Institute hosted a range of events on the day – our aim was to participate, educate, communicate, promote, and engage World Water Day at international level.
We collaborated with the Academy of the Near Future on World Water Day to investigate water pollution in the Docklands area of Dublin. The Academy of the Near Future is a Smart Cities education programme for students from CONNECT and Smart Dublin. The students were taking part in a week-long Transition Year programme called ‘Design your Future City’. Dr. Susan Hegarty and Anna Hayes (Citizen Science Officer) carried out a demonstration of water testing at the Royal Canal followed by students carrying out their own testing on the canal and the Liffey near Samuel Beckett Bridge. The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr. Caroline Conroy joined the group and participated in the sampling.
This coincided with a Pan European WaterBlitz that took place with our ECIU partners in Spain, France, Sweden, and Portugal as part of the Citizens Areas project. They will be collecting and testing water samples throughout the week and we will be monitoring their progress and how we can co-create future projects for SMART-ER cities.
We also engaged with DCU students on campus at the U where we were trying to raise awareness and promote the WWD theme “Accelerate Change” about the day along with our Twitter photo booth!
We carried out an online campaign engaging all water stakeholders to Accelerate Change around water and be the change they wanted to see.
The theme of World Water Day was based on a story about a hummingbird:
‘One day in the forest, a fire broke out.
All the animals ran for their lives.
They stood at the edge of the blaze, looking at the flames in terror and sadness.
Up above their heads, a hummingbird was flying back and forth to the fire, over and over again.
The bigger animals asked the hummingbird what she was doing.
“I am flying to the lake to get water to help put out the fire.”
The animals laughed at her and said, “You can’t put out this fire!”
The hummingbird replied, “I’m doing what I can.”’
https://www.unwater.org/bethechange/
#SDG6, #WorldWaterDay #2023 #ClimateCrisisIsAWaterCrisis