UNEP marks World Lake Day by spotlighting climate change, over-abstraction, and pollution as major threats to lakes, while promoting integrated water management, basin-level approaches and data-driven monitoring as solutions to reverse their decline.
The World Lake Day highlights the importance of lakes, which hold over 90% of the planet’s surface freshwater. They are also vital for climate resilience. However, lakes face increasing threats. UNEP-DHI supports sustainable lake management through integrated water resources approaches, combining policy advice, project support, and advanced tools for monitoring and data analysis.
The World Water Week 2025 focuses on addressing the linked emergencies of climate change, environment degradation and biodiversity loss, emphasizing both mitigation and adaptation alongside the broader goal of enhancing resilience. UNEP-DHI will be present and contribute to sessions at World Water Week 2025. You can see the programme here.
In collaboration with UNEP, Cap-Net, and ILEC, UNEP-DHI Centre is launching the 2025 edition of its Sustainable Lake Management (SLM) course. This online, free and self-paced course offers five modules to improve the understanding of fundamental principles of SLM and to equip participants with tools to develop, implement and refine a participatory lake recovery plan that promotes the sustainable use of lake resources.
Cambodia and Lao PDR have launched Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) Action Plans for 2026–2030, marking a significant step toward sustainable and climate-resilient water governance.
The new 2024 Progress Report on the Implementation of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the Arab Region highlights the critical need for effective water resource management to achieve sustainable development goals. It serves as a comprehensive guide for policymakers, practitioners, and stakeholders, presenting key challenges and showcasing successful case studies from the region.
In partnership with Integrated Drought Management Programme, Cap-Net UNDP, WMO, GWP, and the Volta Flood and Drought Management project, UNEP-DHI developed an online course on Integrated Drought Management: Monitoring and Early Warning. It is designed to improve understanding of proactive integrated drought management and introduces available tools for drought monitoring and forecasting.
Stakeholder Consultations were held in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, between 13-14th of March 2025 by UNEP and UNEP-DHI with a focus to develop a Hydrological Decision Support System (HDSS) for the Lac Tele-Lac Tumba landscape.
The Caspian Sea’s water levels are declining. While the science of Caspian Sea fluctuations is complex, there is growing evidence that substantial further declines will occur in the next 50 years, with impacts on the environment, economies, infrastructure and sustainable development.
A series of publications was developed through the IWRM SDG6 Support Programme on valuing water in Tanzania with the objective of assessing the contribution of water to the national economy.
This report contains the findings of the 2023 global reporting and monitoring exercise on SDG indicator 6.6.1 – Change in the extent of water-related ecosystems over time.
World Water Week 2024 is focused water cooperation, for peace and security in its broadest sense. The theme, “Bridging Borders: Water for a Peaceful and Sustainable Future,” highlights the global and regional connections between communities and emphasizes the need for collaboration to achieve peace and sustainability. UNEP-DHI and DHI will contribute to several sessions at World Water Week 2024.
UNEP DHI Partnership – Centre on Water and Environment
Agern Allé 5, 2970 Denmark
Tel: +45 45169200