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Five Tools to Jumpstart Your Water-related Goals and Targets Ahead of the 2023 United Nations Water Conference

Aiming to promote a shared vision around the value and importance of water for current and future generations, the United Nations 2023 Water Conference, being held in New York from 22-24 March, seeks to advance action to achieve the internationally agreed water-related goals and targets, including those in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Water management is not only central to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), but also critical to achieving ambitious climate action. To illustrate the important linkages between the water-food-energy nexus and water management strategies, this blog highlights five examples of water-related tools from the NDC Partnership’s Climate Toolbox. While there are more 40 resources in the Toolbox related to water and climate action, here are a few key tools that we want to highlight ahead of the UN 2023 Water Conference:
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Addressing Water in National Adaptation Plans: Water is a large part of many countries National Adaptation Plans (NAPs) but can be a challenging field to tackle at first. These Technical Guidelines developed by the Global Water Partnership supports developing countries by: (1) incorporating water-related adaptation needs and opportunities into the formulation and implementation of NAPs, NDCs, national communications, and SDGs; (2) enhancing the integration of water-related adaptation in development policies, programs and plans; and (3) strengthening the resilience of economies, livelihoods, and natural ecosystems by reducing water-related climate vulnerabilities and building adaptive and transformative capacities.
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Aqueduct: Water scarcity is one of the defining issues of the 21st century. With the support of a diverse group of partners, the World Resources Institute built Aqueduct to help companies, investors, governments, and communities better understand where and how water risks are emerging around the world. This tool maps water risks, such as floods, draughts, and infrastructure stresses; additionally, it has recently been updated to capture water risks to agriculture and food safety.
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CropWat: All crops need water; yet water-allocation strategies can often be difficult to plan for and predict with unstable weather patterns and the increasing severity of draughts and rainstorms. CROPWAT 8.0, developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, is a computer program that calculates water and irrigation requirements for crops based on soil, climate and crop data. In addition, the program allows users to develop irrigation schedules for different management conditions and calculates the scheme water supply for varying crop patterns. CROPWAT 8.0 can also be used to evaluate farmers’ irrigation practices and to estimate crop performance under both rainfed and irrigated conditions.
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Urban Water BluePrint: Water quality and management issues in urban areas are vastly different from those in rural areas. The Urban Water Blueprint, produced by The Nature Conservancy, analyzes the state of water in more than 2,000 watersheds and 530 cities worldwide. Once a watershed or city is selected, the user can access critical information on water sources, land use, water-supply risk, and other information that provides science-based recommendations and solutions to improve water quality. This is a great resource for comparative research across cities.
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Water Fund ToolBox: Creating robust funding proposals is a critical skill and this toolbox is here to help. The Water Funds Toolbox, developed by the Nature Conservancy, assists users with scoping, designing and operating water funds. Water funds are organizations that design and enhance financial and governance mechanisms to unite public, private and civil society stakeholders around a common goal, such as contributing to water security through nature-based solutions and/or sustainable watershed management. The Toolbox contains three parts: (1) a step-by-step guide on water funds, (2) a curriculum that facilitates training, and (3) a global network offering support.
For more tools and resources related to water-related climate work, we encourage you to visit the NDC Partnership Knowledge Portal and discover more resources available from our members, including quick and easy access to data, tools, guidance, best practices and funding opportunities. For more information on the NDC Partnership’s participation at the UN 2023 Water Conference, please visit our events page and follow us on social media.