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Nexus Seminar Series – The Second Life of Water: Harnessing Trade-Offs and Synergies
April 27, 2020 @ 2:50 pm - 4:20 pm
Details
Lecturer: Dr. Serena Caucci (Senior Research Associate, UNU-FLORES)
Event date: 27 April 2020 at 14:50-16:20 ONLINE
About
A sustainable development that integrates the environmental, social, and economic dimensions has been the pillar for the introduction of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for promoting sustainable policy actions. This lecture will look into the relevance of water reuse in the circular economy for both the Global North and Global South and will highlight synergies and trade-offs within sustainable water management. Sustainability assessments are tools that can support proper management and translation of knowledge into policy actions. Sustainability assessment of water reuse, especially in agriculture, could be a valuable tool to support the achievement of SDG 6 and 12 considering that agriculture accounts for 70 per cent of the worldwide water abstraction. Unfortunately, sustainability assessment often differs in theory and practice. This lecture will highlight the relevance of water reuse in the circular economy globally and will review the congruency of sustainability assessment in theory and practice. In detail, this presentation we will focus on the dimensionality of the assessments, the boundary in which sustainability indicators are applied, and the gaps for a truly holistic approach will be highlighted. The lecture will also discuss the demo-geography of the regions in which water reuse is applied in agriculture and whether local needs could affect the sustainability assessment criteria. Paths towards the use of a standard but flexible integrated indicator-based assessment methods for sustainable water reuse will be explored. The establishment of a standard set of holistic sustainability indicator factors could be the initial step forward to test sustainability assessment of water reuse in agriculture globally thus contributing to the achievement of the SDGs.