The UN Environment Programme GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre (CDC) has come a long way since the start of its activity in the Environmental Research Institute (UCC, Cork) in 2014. The Centre provides Capacity Development in freshwater quality monitoring and assessment through a variety of activities. These activities encourage best practice to help countries generate sound water quality data and use this data effectively to improve water quality management.

The 22^nd March is World Water Day. This International celebration was officially established in 1993 to help raise awareness of our freshwater resources throughout the world.

This years’ World Water Day is a bit different because of the pandemic of COVID-19. For obvious reasons, the events have been cancelled in most places and some are transforming those events to adapt them into a virtual environment. Therefore, we still can celebrate this special day from the comfort of our own home. How?

The UNEP GEMS/Water CDC is now a partner in the Erasmus+ WATER -  Work based Learning Paths in Water Management Project.

Welcome to the seventh edition of the UN Environment Programme GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre (CDC) Newsletter. 

Deborah took part in a panel session on River Restoration, Health and Hygiene on the 4-6 December 2019 and gave a presentation on “River and lake restoration: cultural benefits”. The Forum “Water Culture, a challenge that brings us all together “ was organised by the National Water Authority (ANA) with the aim of sharing knowledge, experiences, good practices, lessons learned and challenges on water culture in Peru and at the international level.

The DANUBIUS-RI is a distributed research infrastructure which aims to “achieve healthy River-Sea Systems and advance their sustainable use, in order to live within the planet’s ecological limits by 2050”. 

Dr. John Weatherill and Dr. Deborah Chapman visitied the city of Bari in Italy for the kick off meeting on Work-based Learning Paths in Water Management.

The trip was undertaken to strengthen the relationships between the UN Environment GEMS/Water and the MRC. During the first two days of the visit, 5^th and 6^th November, they attended the 8^th Regional Stakeholder Forum between. In the third and last day, a meeting was held in the Mekong River Commission centre where potential opportunities of collaboration were explored and a successful agreement was reached to jointly carry out diverse activities during the year 2020.

The next intake for our professional short on-line courses is fast approaching: 06/12/2019.

Two reports on the findings of a feedback process for SDG Indicator 6.3.2 are now available. One focusses on the workshop held in Dublin last year, and the other is broader in scope, and addresses the entire feedback process.These reports draw on the inputs from those who implemented the methodology in 2017 as well as the wider scientific and technical community.

Fátima and Elena will be helping us with many aspects of our work including the production of our online courses (Postgraduate diploma, MSc and short online courses) and managing a stand for the annual UCC Science Fest.

We are kicking off our inaugural MSc degree with a number of students from our Postgraduate programme partaking.

The UN Environment GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre is offering a range of accredited, short on-line courses focusing on aspects of water quality monitoring and assessment. On-line application close on the 22nd of August and courses commence September 2019.  

For full details visit: https://www.ucc.ie/en/gemscdc/onlinecourses/

The GEMS/Water CDC will be accepting students to our Postgraduate Diploma and new MSc programmes this Spring/Summer with an application deadline for both of the 15th of June 2019 and a commencement date for both of September 2019. We are also offering our short on-line courses for professionals that run twice a year commencing in January and September.

From the 1st to the 5th of April 2019 the Centre delivered its Postgraduate Diploma field course module to demonstrate and practice field sampling and monitoring techniques for freshwater quality assessment. Over the course of the week our PGDip students completed a series of practical exercises in rivers, lakes and groundwaters, covering monitoring site selection, sample collection, field-based measurements, field quality assurance, risk assessments and logistics. Water sampling for chemical and biological analysis was carried out, and data were analysed and presented. Alongside spending time in the laboratory and the field, the students took the opportunity to interact with the Centre staff and colleagues from the School of BEES and the EPA and to explore Cork City and county.

For our Regional Workshop for Eastern Europe and Central Asia the GEMS/Water CDC hosted eleven participants from nine countries including Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Russia, Georgia, Albania, Montenegro, and Serbia.

Debbie and Katelyn from the CDC and Dymtro from the Data Centre travelled to Vientiane, Laos in February of this year to give a Water Quality Monitoring training workshop.

Click the link below to see the bi-annual GEMS/Water CDC newsletter.

The GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre were lead authors for the report on SDG indicator 6.3.2: Progress on Ambient Water Quality – Piloting the monitoring methodology and initial findings for SDG indicator 6.3.2. This report was launched at World Water Week in Stockholm as part of a series that track progress towards the various targets set out in SDG 6 using the SDG global indicators.

The GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre convened a meeting of water quality experts and representatives of countries which reported on SDG indicator 6.3.2 during the 2017 data drive. Approximately 30 participants from 16 countries representing all world regions attended the lively two-day meeting which was held in Customs House, Dublin. We were kindly hosted by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, and Irish Aid of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade attended. We received funding from the Government of Germany to help finance global participation.

Many thanks to all the organisations and groups that help us on a daily basis at the GEMS Water CDC.

Our mission: to develop global capacity to monitor the quality of freshwater in supoort of environmental assessment at national, regional and global scales.

The good folk at XLSTAT have very kindly provided us with extended trials of their software for the students of our Postgraduate Diploma. We have been using the Base version of XLSTAT to complete statistical analysis on environmental data and the students have taken to the software well, describing it as easy and intuitive to use. Many thanks to Thierry, Anne-Cécille and the team at XLSTAT for their assistance.

The GEMS/Water CDC centre hosted a number of events for World Water Day 2018.

An interview with UN Environment GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre Director, Dr Debbie Chapman regarding the importance of managing global water resources is featured on page 10 in this issue of ISOfocus

Click the link to the see the bi-annual GEMS/Water CDC newsletter.

UCC President Pat O’Shea officially launched the ERI’s new Strategic Plan for 2018-2022 on Dec 4th in the Aula Maxima. The plan outlines a re-focusing of the research activities of the flagship Institute to address three core environmental challenges, Climate Action, Circular Economy and Healthy Environment, which align with the major international environment and climate change programmes and initiatives such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the Paris Agreement and the 7^th EU Environment Action Programme.

The GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre hosted a successful Workshop at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok from the 6^th to 8^th of November 2017. The workshop was entitled “Ambient Water Quality: monitoring for management and SDG indicator 6.3.2 reporting” and brought together 16 national focal points and country representatives from the Asia Pacific region.

Click the link to see the bi-annual GEMS/Water CDC newsletter.

The report from our workshop in Nairobi November 2016 is now available here.

Click the link to watch Dr. Debbie Chapmans lecture for World Water Day 2017 at Univserity College Cork: https://goo.gl/xf1Zw0

Each year UN Water promotes awareness of water issues and sustainable use of water by celebrating World Water Day. On World Water Day 2017 Dr Deborah Chapman, Director of the UN Environment GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre in UCC, will raise awareness of the new global Agenda 2030 and its associated Sustainable Development Goal for water.

The GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre team, together with the GEMS/Water Regional Hub, based in the National Water Agency in Brazil (http://www2.ana.gov.br/Paginas/EN/), hosted a successful Scoping Workshop in Brasília, Brazil, in January 2017. The Workshop was entitled Ambient Water Quality: monitoring for management and SDG reporting.

Debbie Chapman and Stuart Warner of the GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre, with the rest of the GEMS/Water international team hosted a workshop at United Nations Offices Nairobi (UNON).  The workshop was held in conjunction with CAP-Net (http://www.cap-net.org/) and UNEP Freshwater Ecosystems Unit (https://goo.gl/yRTMwL). 

Staff from the UNEP GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre will be running a workshop called Ambient Water Quality: Monitoring for management, in the UN complex in Nairobi on the 8th to the 10th of November (2016).

Dr. Deborah Chapman and Stuart Warner of the GEMS/Water CDC attended the GEMI Work in Progress workshop, from the 7th to the 9th of September, hosted by UNESCO-IHE, in Delph, the Netherlands. 

Dr Debbie Chapman and Mr Stuart Warner are currently representing the UNEP GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre at the second session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-2), taking place from the 23^rd – 27^th May at the UNEP headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, under the overarching theme of “Delivering on the environmental dimension of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”. 

Debbie and I are at UNEA-2 (the second United Nations Environment Assembly - http://web.unep.org/unea) in Nairobi representing GEMS/Water, UCC and Ireland.  It’s a unique opportunity to meet face-to-face with delegates and stakeholders from each of the 193 UN member states.

We’re here to promote GEMS/Water, focussing on the capacity development aspect which is based in the ERI (https://www.ucc.ie/en/gemscdc/).  The initial focus of the project is scoping.  We must understand countries’ water quality monitoring needs.  It’s something we take for granted in Ireland with decades of reliable and robust water quality data which is freely available.  Many countries, especially in Africa have little or no water quality monitoring programme.  Once we understand the needs, we will be rolling out training material and running workshops enabling countries to collect and analyse their own water quality data.

The UNEP GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre will be participating in the United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi next week, alongside groups from the GEMS/Water Data Centre and the World Water Quality Assessment.

GLOBAL WATER CHALLENGES: PATHWAYS TOWARDS ACHIEVING AGENDA 2030

The outcome document of the United Nations “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” highlights the critical inter-linkages of the environmental and social dimensions of the water challenge ranging from human health to disaster prevention and affecting also coastal zones.

22^nd March is International World Water Day. World Water Day was officially established in 1993 to help raise awareness of our freshwater resources throughout the world.

The GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre (CDC) was officially launched on 22^nd January, at a well-attended event in the Council Room on the UCC main campus.

Richard Thomas was a key member of the GEMS/Water programme team from its early days, contributing to its establishment and steering its growth and success into the 1990s, and until his retirement. 

The GEMS/Water CDC officially launches on Friday the 22nd January, 2016.

On 29^th and 30^th of October 2015 the Centre ran a two-day training workshop in the Environmental Research Centre on “Quality assured data from water quality monitoring programmes: practice and practicalities” for 10 staff of the National Institute for Environmental Research, South Korea.