The GEF / UNDP / ASEAN Project on Reducing Pollution and Preserving Environmental Flows in the East Asian Seas through the Implementation of Integrated River Basin Management (IRBM) in the ASEAN Countries is a 5-year project (2023-2027) with the goal of establishing functional IRBM mechanisms in seven priority river basins / sub-basins / watersheds in six ASEAN Member States, to reduce pollution, sustain freshwater environmental flows and adapt to climate change vulnerabilities. The Project is designed to improve governance and management arrangements in IRBM and accelerate the required changes in the six AMS in support of national priorities, objectives and commitments to global sustainable development targets using the Source to Sea (S2S) framework. The PEMSEA Resource Facility (PRF), which serves as the Project Implementing Partner, hosts the Regional Project Management Unit (RPMU). It works in collaboration with National and Local Government Partners and River Basin Organizations.

Component 1 of the Project focuses on the conduct of a baseline assessment of the S2S management continuum with a targeted outcome of improving understanding of governance, socioeconomic, ecological conditions, gaps and needs of priority river basins / sub-basins and coastal areas. This will be achieved through the establishment of the State of River Basin (SORB) reporting system to consolidate information coming from administrative, social, economic and environmental sectors. As an input to the SORB baseline reporting, it is required to complete a comprehensive assessment of competing uses and users of water as a consequence of existing and future water uses and their implications on the water / energy / food / ecosystem (WEFE) security nexus in the priority river basins.

FutureWater is providing this assessment of the WEFE security nexus through review of existing knowledge and literature, stakeholder consultations, as well as tailoring and applying its REWEFe toolkit for nexus analysis to seven river basins in six countries of Southeast Asia: Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines and Viet Nam.

To this end, FutureWater, in collaboration with unique land use GmbH and the Central Himalayan Rural Action Group, is conducting a training program on Springshed Management in four states, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh India. The program aims to equip the local stakeholders with practical tools and best practices for managing springshed and springs in the region. The key beneficiaries of these trainings are the forest departments of these four states under the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Climate Change (MoEF&CC). Funded by GIZ India, these trainings will covers key topics, including:

  • Concepts of springs and springshed management protocols and best practices
  • Hydro-geological data collection during a field expedition
  • Springshed mapping
  • Connecting forest ecosystem services to water resources

For the first round of training the consortium will start training with the Uttarakhand Forest Department (UKFD) in Dehradun, India. This initiative aims to strengthen sustainable water management practices and safeguard these critical water sources for future generations.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is considering supporting the (re)construction of four wastewater treatment plants in Stepnogorsk, Satpaev, Zhezkazgan, and Balkhash. Detailed engineering designs are being prepared by designers recruited by Vodokanals. Climate change impacts may exacerbate environmental pollution and other adverse effects of aging infrastructure on service delivery. FutureWater conducted a Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) to ensure that climate impacts are fully considered in the detailed design and construction phases.

The CRA identified the main vulnerability components for the four proposed wastewater treatment plants as: (i) extreme precipitation leading to stormwater runoff, (ii) low flows causing water quality problems, (iii) flooding of infrastructure (both fluvial and pluvial), (iv) power supply outages, and (v) heat stress. FutureWater’s risk assessment, which considered the combined effects of hazard, vulnerability, and exposure, concluded that all five major identified risks require attention. Since the draft designs already account for the current extreme climate conditions, and due to relatively modest projected climate changes (temperature, precipitation, wind), the need for additional adaptation measures will be relatively modest.

FutureWater’s assessment contributed to ensuring that the four wastewater treatment plants will be climate-resilient, thereby securing the investment.

The UNDP is implementing the project “Conservation and sustainable management of lakes, wetlands, and riparian corridors as pillars of a resilient and land degradation-neutral Aral basin landscape supporting sustainable livelihoods” to enhance the resilience of the ecosystems and livelihoods in Lower Amudarya and Aral Sea Basin (LADAB) through land degradation neutrality (LDN) compatible integrated land-water management.

This assignment contributes to water allocation analysis and the development of water supply scenarios for irrigated agriculture and biodiversity conservation reports. The services consist in:

  1. Consulting with project experts, government agencies, local communities, and other relevant stakeholders
  2. Develop a hydro-economic water allocation model for the lower Amu Darya basin using WEAP
  3. Explore different scenarios for irrigated agriculture and biodiversity conservation, considering climate change, to strike a balance between sustainable agricultural practices and conservation of biodiversity and ecosystems and (iv) build capacity and support project experts and relevant stakeholders on water allocation analysis and modelling.
Stakeholders consultation in Nukus, Uzbekistan

Currently, Pakistan’s energy mix consists of 58.8% thermal, 25.8% hydel, 8.6% nuclear, and 6.8% alternative sources, reflecting efforts to diversify from fossil fuels. Pakistan’s installed electricity generation capacity reached 41,557 MW by 2022, with significant growth in transmission line length over the past 5 years. However, the T&D system has not kept pace with the nearly 15,000 MW capacity added during 2017-2021 (ADB, 2024). Despite investments, transmission and distribution losses averaged about 18% over the last 5 years, exceeding the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority’s (NEPRA) 15.3% target. In 2020, 23.7% of generated energy was lost during transmission, distribution, and delivery (ADB, 2024). Notably, transmission and distribution losses exceed 25%, far higher than in comparable countries (GoP, 2017). Therefore, there is an urgent need to upgrade the existing distribution infrastructure to fulfill the energy demands and ensure steady socioeconomic development in the country. ADB will provide financing for four underperforming DISCOs, selected in consultation with the Ministry of Energy: Sukkur Electric Power Company (SEPCO), Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (HESCO), the Multan Electric Power Company (MEPCO), and the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) to:

  1. to upgrade the critical infrastructure of these DISCOs to reduce technical losses.
  2. to implement revenue protection measures to improve collections. Additionally, the project design includes embedded climate resilience and reform measures to enhance institutional capacity and financial sustainability.

These rehabilitation efforts will also take into account and address the growing impacts of climate change in four DISCOs. FutureWater will make use of state-of-the-art downscaled Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) ensembles, and other relevant hazards and local information to develop this CRA. Insights from the CRA will be used to devise adaptation strategies. Additionally, FutureWater will be reviewing the existing meteorological monitoring network and recommending additional potential monitoring sites for improved surveillance in the country. To further assist the Government of Pakistan, in actualizing its second Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) agenda which seeks to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions per unit of GDP by 50% (compared to the level in 2016), by the year 2030, FutureWater will also develop a GHG account and prepare a Paris Agreement alignment assessment.

Most recent research has focused on identifying historical megadroughts based on paleo-records and understanding their climatic causes, or on the study of “modern” events and their impacts, generally in lowland and plain regions. However, high-mountain regions and snow-dependent catchments have been little studied, and little is known about the impact of megadroughts on the state and dynamics of the cryosphere in mountain water towers.  

In general, catchments dependent on high mountain systems have an intrinsic capacity to buffer the lack of precipitation and excess evapotranspiration that depends on the water reserves stored in the cryosphere (snow, glaciers and permafrost). It is presumed that the this buffer capacity is limited until a tipping point is reached from which the impacts of water shortages and temperature extremes may be amplified and jeopardize the functioning of ecosystems and water resource systems. 

MegaWat has a two-fold objective: 1) to address the knowledge gaps around the hydro-climatic causes of extreme droughts and their impact on the water balance of Europe’s mountain water towers, with special emphasis on the concurrence of compound events and cascading and multi-scale effects, and 2) to develop and propose new adaptation strategies to cope with the duration, extent and severity of future megadroughts and their potential impacts on environmental and socio-economic assets.  

For its implementation, MegaWat focuses on Europe’s high mountain regions and their dependent-catchments. MegaWat aims to develop three products:  

  • Product 1. A methodological framework for the identification and characterization of historical megadroughts during the instrumental period, and the assessment of the role of the cryosphere in supporting the landscape development of downstream areas, or in buffering climate change impacts. Product 1 relies on a combination of climate regionalization, surface energy balance modelling, hydrological simulation, and water evaluation and allocation analysis at the catchment level (Figure 1).  
  • Product 2. A high-resolution, open-access regionalized climate database.  
  • Product 3. A list of potential adaptation strategies useful for the prevention and mitigation of drought impacts, and the enhancement of the water security and resilience of high mountain regions and dependent catchments. These scenarios will be agreed with regional and local actors and stakeholders, and their effectiveness will be evaluated under extreme drought scenarios in three pilot regions in Europe. These pilot regions will be previously selected following criteria of representativeness, strategic importance and vulnerability to droughts.  

FutureWater plays an important role in MegaWat by coordinating the Work Package which aims to develop and test simulation tools that help to adapt to megadroughts and support the decision making process. Two specific objectives are pursued in this Work Package: a) the development of a methodological prototype for quantifying impacts and identifying tipping points for water security in snow-dependent downstream catchments, and b) the generation and the integration of snow drought indicators in the FW’s Drought Early Warning System called InfoSequia (Figure 2). 

Schematic representation of a high mountain basin, including the main components, processes and impacts related to droughts. 
Workflow of the InfoSequia Early Warning System developed by FutureWater and adapted for the detection of tipping-points of water scarcity in snow-dependent catchments. More information about InfoSequia.

One-pager can be downloaded here.

Aknowledgements  

This project has received funding from the Water4All programme with co-funding from CDTI (Spanish Office for Science and Technology) and the EU’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme for Research and Innovation”. 

Increasing water scarcity continues to threaten the agricultural sector in Asia. To address this critical issue, FAO and its partners have been developing a comprehensive Asia-Pacific Water Scarcity Programme (WSP) since 2019. The program aims to assess the ongoing issue of water scarcity in the region, evaluate potential management options, and assist partner countries in implementing adaptive management in the agricultural water sector using innovative tools and approaches.

Addressing the issue of water scarcity requires a sound understanding and development of water accounts to ensure evidence-based decision-making for equitable use and allocation of water resources under a changing climate. To achieve this, a comprehensive hands-on training program on water accounting will be developed and implemented across four countries: Indonesia, Lao PDR, Vietnam, and Thailand. In collaboration with the Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (RAP) of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), FutureWater will design and deliver the water accounting training program. This program aims to not only improve participants’ understanding of water accounting but also enable them to use modern and innovative tools to develop water accounts, with a particular focus on quantifying linkages between field interventions and basin-scale hydrology.

Participants will work with tools such as REWAS and Follow the Water (developed by FutureWater in collaboration with FAO) to conduct water accounting in agricultural systems at different scales. Through the use of these tools, participants will be able to estimate real water savings at system and basin scales and analyze the impact of different irrigation schemes on the overall water availability in the system. Moreover, participants will also learn how to access and extract remotely sensed datasets to assess the status of the water resources in the Nam Ngum pilot basin.

Urban flood management in Laos is typically based on a limited, hard infrastructure approach. With the aim to shift this paradigm towards an integrated approach that enhances climate resilience, the project “Building resilience of urban populations with ecosystem-based solutions in Lao PDR” was approved by the Green Climate Fund Board in November 2019 with a GCF grant of US$10 million. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) serves as the Accredited Entity for the project. Activities are executed by the State of Lao PDR through the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) as well as UNEP. The project is implemented across five years (2020-2025) covering four provincial capitals in the country: Vientiane, Paksan, Savannakhet, and Pakse.

One component of the project involves technical and institutional capacity building to plan, design, implement and maintain integrated urban Ecosystems-based Adaptation (EbA) interventions for the reduction of climate change induced flooding. As a part of Integrated Climate-resilient Flood Management Strategy (ICFMS) development, the project conducts hydrological, hydraulic and climate risk assessments to inform climate change adaptation solutions for risk reduction in Vientiane, Paksan, Savannakhet and Pakse.

A consortium of FutureWater, Mekong Modelling Associates (MMA) and Lao Consulting Group (LCG) was contracted by MONRE to implement the related activities. FutureWater leads and coordinates this assignment and contributes remote sensing analyses with state-of-the-art innovative tools, climate risk assessments, and training activities. To ensure sustainability and effective technology transfer, the modelling and mapping infrastructure and trained staff will be hosted within MONRE and a knowledge hub that is established within the National University of Laos.

 

Southern Spain is a highly productive agricultural region, but with huge challenges around water scarcity and environmental sustainability. There is a demand in the agricultural sector to work towards water stewardship in Spain. The Alliance for Water Stewardship has developed a Standard which helps retailers and their suppliers to cause change at scale. This approach recognizes that there are common challenges that could be more easily overcome through a collective, place-based approach.

In the Doñana region, berry farms and groundwater usage are causing a conflict with the unique ecosystems in the National Park. A catchment assessment and active stakeholder engagement is needed as a first step in this region to work towards water stewardship. The catchment assessment will provide information on the catchment context, in line with the requirements of the Standard. The purpose of the assessment is to reduce the burden on agricultural sites by providing them with a common set of information which they and others can use to inform responses to their shared water challenges.

FutureWater will develop a high-level climate change and adaptation assessment for Turkmenistan to strengthen the water and agriculture sector’s resilience against climate change. The work involves a detailed hazard mapping exercise, employing observational and satellite-based information, to identify climate-related risks such as droughts, water scarcity, heat, salinity, erosion, and floods. These mapped hazards will be synthesized at the administrative level, presenting a comprehensive visual representation through figures and tables.

Key exposure and vulnerability datasets will be mapped, and pertinent sources for subsequent collection and analysis will be identified, setting the stage for a detailed risk assessment beyond the scope of work. The key output of this effort is the assembly of an inventory of climate adaptation measures gleaned from existing reports and official documents, contextualized to Turkmenistan’s unique circumstances, and an initial gap and opportunity assessment based on this inventory.

Based on the assessment, the adaptation options will be categorized and an initial prioritization will take place based on each option’s potential to mitigate risks across various hazards, its capacity for impactful outcomes beyond local scales, and a relative indication of expected cost-effectiveness. The outcome should provide a foundation for an integrated climate adaptation project. Concurrently, FutureWater will engage in country consultations, collaborating with stakeholders to confirm or refine identified adaptation options. These consultations will also explore potential synergies with ongoing and planned projects initiated by both the government and development partners.