Water security – a sustainable and adequate quantity and quality of water – is essential to human life, food and energy security, health and wellbeing, and economic prosperity. Yet nearly eighty percent of the world’s population live in areas where water security is thwarted by pressures such as climate change, conflict, ecosystem damage, extreme weather, gender inequalities, land degradation, over-abstraction, pollution, poor governance and uncontrolled urbanization. The Hub brings together an international team to address these threats and contribute towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 6 (Clean Water and Sanitation).
Tackling water security will require a more integrated approach to a wide range of activities including water supply, wastewater treatment, flood management, sanitation, catchment management, pollution, maintenance, funding and finance. To achieve this, the Hub will develop and demonstrate a transformative systems approach. This recognizes the complexity, interactions, and interdependencies between the people, institutions, natural environment and infrastructure involved in water security.