Announcement of the session on
Programme
Session Chair(s)nameRavi Narayanan, APWF (Chair)
U Hla Baw, NWRC/ GWP Asia (Co-Chair)Potential
Presenters/Panelists

Presenters (Five-minute presentations each)
1. U Aung Khaing Moe, Assistant Director, Irrigation and Water Utilization
Management Department (IWUMD), MOALI: presentation title TBC
2. Thura Oo, Rector, Ministry of Education (MOE): presentation title TBC
3. Madhav Dhakal, Associate Hydrologist, ICIMOD: Rainwater harvesting in
Shan State, Myanmar
4. Tsutomu Nagata, Director, Water Conservation Division, Environmental
Promotion Department, Environment Bureau, Kumamoto City, JAPAN:
Sustainable Groundwater Preservation in Kumamoto
5. Shahbaz Khan, Director, UNESCO Asia Pacific Regional Bureau for
Science: Threats and Opportunities for Integrated Water Harvesting andGroundwater Management
6. Paul Pavelic, IWMI, Laos: Innovative underground solutions to addressing
water variability and climate change

13:30 – 14:15

Q & A (10 min)Facilitator: John Dore, Advisor, DFAT
1. U Than Zaw, Deputy Director, Irrigation and Water Utilization Management
Department (IWUMD), Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation(MOALI)
2. Toshio Okazumi, Councilor, Secretariat of Water Cycle Policy
Headquarters, Cabinet Secretariat, JAPAN
3. Joern Kristensen, Executive Director, Myanmar Institute for IntegratedDevelopment (MIID)
4. Aditi Mukherji, Theme Leader, Water and Air, ICIMOD: Step wise spring
revival protocols for mountains
5. Khin Ni Ni Thein, Secretary, Advisory Group and Member NWRC,
MyanmarClosing Remarks
Summary and conclusion by Keiichi Ishii, the Minister for Water-Cycle Policy,
Japan (5 minutes)

For further information
Aditi Mukherji
Mdhav Dhakal

Rainwater Harvesting andSustainable Groundwater
ManagementCo Leads of the session• Secretariat of Water Cycle Policy
Headquarters, Cabinet Secretariat,JAPAN• Ministry of Education, Myanmar

Panelists (each will respond to a question within 5 minutes)
14:15 – 15:00

Reviving HydrologicalCycles:

aditi.mukherji@icimod.org
madhav.dhakal@icimod.org

Photos: Madhav Dhakal
ICIMOD gratefully acknowledges the support of its coredonors: the Governments of Afghanistan, Australia, Austria,
Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal,
Norway, Pakistan, Sweden, and Switzerland© ICIMOD 2017
International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development
GPO Box 3226, Kathmandu, Nepal
Tel +977-1-5003222 Email info@icimod.org
Web www.icimod.org
Designed by ICIMOD Publications Unit, December 2017

• Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock andIrrigation, Myanmar

Background
Springs in the hills and mountains
and wells in the plains are the basic
groundwater sources for domestic andagricultural use. Groundwater also
plays an important role in sustaining
ecosystem services as it provides baseflow to river systems. Groundwater
sources are increasingly drying up in
many places because of climate andother socio- economic, infrastructural,and demographic changes. Ensuring
affordable and sustainable access todrinking and agricultural water while
maintaining the environmental flow,
therefore, is a key challenge in the Asia
Pacific region. It assumes even moresignificance in the Hindu Kush Himalaya(HKH) and the river basins that emanate

At the 3rd Asia Pacific Water Summit on
Water Security for Sustainable Developmentorganized by the Republic of the Union ofMyanmar and the Asia-Pacific Water Forum
Date: 11 December 2017
Time:

13:30–15:00

Venue: SEDONA Hotel Yangon, Myanmar
http://www.sedonahotels.com.sg/yangon

from the HKH because these ten rivers
together support around two billion ofAsia’s population, and support some of
the most intensively irrigated areas in thecontinent.
Drying or depleting groundwater
sources can be revived throughrainwater harvesting and by increasing
infiltration to recharge aquifers.
Rainwater harvesting and groundwater
management have strong interlinkages
and should always be promoted intandem. Furthermore, comprehensive
and united approaches that take into
consideration forests, rivers, farmland,urban areas, lakes and marshes, andcoastal areas from the viewpoint of thewater cycle are necessary.

 foster a sound water cycle throughcoordination among various water
stakeholders.

Outcome of the session
Consolidate actionable good practices/
strategies and policies on rainwater
harvesting and groundwater use
and management that have been
widely adopted in the region with
their implementation processes,
lessons learnt, and approaches taken,
and to make recommendations formainstreaming such knowledge innational plans and policies.

Against this background, theInternational Centre for Integrated
Mountain Development (ICIMOD)
was appointed coordinator of thesession “Reviving Hydrological Cycles:
Rainwater Harvesting and Sustainable
Groundwater Management” with theMinistry of Land, Infrastructure, Transportand Tourism (MLIT) Japan and theMinistry of Education and Ministry ofBorder Affairs, Myanmar.
The session will deal with four aspects ofrainwater harvesting and groundwater
use: a) rainwater harvesting for domestic
and agricultural uses, b) rainwater
harvest for aquifers recharge, c) groundwater use and its sustainable
management in the agricultural sector,and d) holistic approach with theviewpoint of the water cycle.

Objectives of session
To share state-of-the-art knowledge
on ongoing national/regional/local
level water harvesting practices,
strategies, and policies that contributeto: access to safe drinking water
during the dry season for domestic
and agricultural uses,
 increased infiltration to recharge
aquifers that provide water tosprings and wells for domestic andagricultural uses,
 sharing of success stories
where groundwater, coupledwith rainwater harvesting forrecharge, has led to an increase inagricultural production, and