1. Water Quality and Freshwater Ecosystems Joakim Harlin, Freshwater Ecosystems Unit (FEU) Ecosystems Division, UN Environment Cap-Net / GEMS Water Meeting, 8 November 2016

2. Freshwater ecosystems provide essential services – all depend on water quality
Industry – Energy – Food
Climate change resilience
Biodiversity and Recreation
Drinking water, human health and wellbeing

3. Quick facts about freshwater ecosystems
Freshwater ecosystems such as wetlands, rivers, aquifers and lakes contain less than 1% of all water on Earth.
Yet they provide direct essential services to humans such as the water used for drinking, agriculture, energy, recreation and tourism.
In addition, freshwater ecosystems provide indirect services such as habitats for fish and other aquatic lifeforms, water purification and climate resilience.
To function properly, freshwater ecosystems require both enough quantity and quality of water.

4. Threats to ecosystem water quality
Freshwater ecosystems are highly vulnerable to natural disasters, with the vast majority (over 90%) being water-related
Exacerbated by climate change – severe flood and drought, more extreme, more unpredictable and more frequent
Freshwater ecosystems also bear the brunt of human activities – pollution through pathogens (untreated wastewater from sewer systems) organic matter (including agricultural run-off) and salinity (irrigation, domestic wastewater and runoff of mines)

5. Extent of the water quality threat
Recent assessment by UNEP in 2016 (A Snapshot of the World’s Water Quality) shows how pollution is affecting rivers in Latin America, Africa and Asia:
1/3 of all rivers affected by sever pathogenic pollution
1/7 of all rivers affected by severe organic pollution
1/10 of all rivers affected by severe and moderate salinity

6. Need for a Worldwide Water Quality Assessment
More information is needed, and more needs to be done to understand the extent of the water quality problem.
A UN-Water Analytical Brief calls for a Worldwide Quality Assessment will be launched at Budapest Water Summit this month.
A WWQA would:
Overcome current data limitations
Enable policy makers to grasp the extent of the problem
Enable the setting of quality targets for water-related ecosystems

7. Thank you