Meeting of UN Expert Group on Water Quality
Management
More than 50 water professionals from 10 of the
13 UN-ESCWA countries gathered in the city of Sana'a from 17-19
July 2007. The meeting, which aimed to develop and apply
indicators and indices for water quality management in the
region, was organised in collaboration with the Ministry of
Water and Environment in Yemen, the Water and Environment Centre
(WEC) in Sana'a University, the Federal Institute for
Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR), and GTZ. In his opening
speech, Dr. Hosny Khordagui, Team Leader of the UN-ESCWA Water
and Environment Team, stressed the fact that this meeting was on
a supranational - not a governmental - level, and aimed to
promote the exchange of experts' knowledge, experience and
personal opinions.
Against the background of deteriorating water resources in the
ESCWA region, the experts intensively discussed actual
shortcomings in water quality management and came up with
suggestions and recommendations for future improvements. Among
these were the urgent need for effective instruments, such as
the "polluter pays principle" and means of law enforcement.
Continuous and reliable monitoring of water quality and the
subsequent use of these data when making decisions that conform
with IWRM principles were identified as crucial points for the
successful management of water quality. It was suggested that
guidelines be developed on sampling procedures, sampling
intervals and key water quality parameters, to reduce the cost
of monitoring and improve the comparability of data.
Based on case studies from Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman,
Syria, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, progress and challenges in water
quality management in the corresponding countries were
discussed. It became apparent that some of the problems are
quite similar in different countries and that the dissemination
of information beyond national borders may offer great added
value to all parties involved.
BGR and GTZ are supporting UN-ESCWA in facilitating regional
cooperation in the water sector.
Holger Treidel, BGR
July 2007
