NEWS in brief
systems, like drinking fountains. Think for a second about
the large amount of water you don’t drink at a fountain.
Global Goals at the Global Citizen Festival 2015
Global Highlights
opportunity cost of the ecosystems being protected.
Typical applications include assessing ecosystem
services, conservation priorities, and impacts of planned
development projects (agricultural, industrial, mining,
tourism), taking into account human pressures and threats
on natural resources as well as biodiversity.
The tool is aimed at development practitioners, policy
analysts, industry, educators, and academics. The tool is
easy to use by those who have a basic understanding of
GIS. The tool provides rapid results using globally available
datasets and, taking more time, also can be used with more
detailed locally derived data where available.
Share tech or risk water conflict, warns UN thinktank
To mark the UN’s launch of the Global Goals to end
extreme poverty by 2030, the Global Citizen Festival
gathered world leaders, musicians and over 60,000
attendees in Central Park for an evening of music,
entertainment and valuable discussions.
Co$ting Nature to Improve Ecosystem
Management
Co$ting Nature is a
software tool that aids
in developing strategies
to sustain and improve
ecosystem management.
It is being used by WLE
in its Volta region work
in Africa for ecosystem
service trade-off analysis.
The web-based tool
Failed maize crops in Ghana’s Upper
analyzes the benefits
West Region. Photo Credit: Neil
provided by the natural
Palmer/CIAT
environment, the
beneficiaries of those
ecosystem services, and assesses the impacts of possible
human interventions on the continued provision of these
benefits.
The intended and unintended consequences of a
development action can be computer simulated in order to
better understand the likely outcomes and effectiveness of
such policies before implementation in the field.
Example of an output from Co$ting Nature tool.
The tool incorporates detailed spatial datasets at 1-square
km and 1-hectare resolution for the entire world, spatial
models for biophysical and socioeconomic processes,
and scenarios for climate change, land use change and
user valuation of ecosystem services and conservation
priorities. The tool is focused on understanding the
10
Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • November - December 2015
Photo: Valentina Jovanovski
Countries must share technological solutions to manage
freshwater resources together, says a UN University report.
Although 200 water treaties have been signed in the past
50 years, water remains a significant source of potential
conflict in places without adequate cooperation, according
to the study published by the UN University Institute for
Water, Environment and Health (UNU-INWEH).
The study, published on 1 October, says there have been
37 water conflicts since 1948. In places such as Israel and
its neighbours, political tensions mean that the distribution
of water is a potential source of added conflict.
Water flows through different countries and jurisdictions
that need to work together to manage water successfully
— especially when water becomes scarcer because of
population growth and climate change, the report says.
Technology is increasingly being used to manage water
resources, the report says. For example, satellite monitoring
technology can be used to map water management
systems, such as irrigation channels and dams, and
could one day provide decision-makers with real-time
information.
Accor [