For A Sustainable Water Environment inAsia‐‐ WEPA’s Approach ‐‐Motoyuki Suzuki
Chair, Central Environmental Council, Japan
14 March, 2012, Marseille

Water Environment Crisis
The water environment crisis in the world will
increase if people stick to the current growthparadigms.
Water resources will continuously diminish and theavailability of services provided by water will
decline as a result of population and climate change
Lack of reliable information on the waterenvironment hinders timely and adequate decision
making.

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To Realize Sustainable Water Environment
SustainableSystems
For FutureGenerations

DPSIR
structures etc.

Countermeasures:
Legal/economic policy options, available
technologies, changing way of living

Assessment:
Concept, Optimization, objective function, etc
Information:
F tb /d t b
Factbase/database,statistics,
t ti ti etc.
t
Local Characteristics:
Geographical/Climatic Conditions,
Anthropogenic/Cultural/Traditional/Indigenous
Backgrounds, etc.

PDCA cycle etc.

Our Action for Sustainable Water Environment– Water Environment Partnership in Asia (WEPA)‐ A regional partnershipprogram launched in 2004
by the Ministry of theEnvironment, Japan.
‐ Aiming for sustainable waterenvironment in the region
gthrough “Knowledge“Knowledge‐‐Sharing” and “CapacityDevelopment”

Partnership of
13 Asian Countries2http://www.wepa‐db.net/index.htm

First Phase (2004‐2008)• Activities/documents
A i i i /d
• Dialogues with member countries for Information Sharing• Linkage with WWFs
• Annual Meetings
State of water / Organizational arrangement/Legislative framework / Background / Law
and Workshops
enforcement / Cases

Database of technologies inoperation / Information on
appropriate technologies• Database

Activities by NGOs and CBOs /Governmental activities
Various sources of waterwater‐‐related information,
Global level / Asia regional level / NationallevelSecond Phase (2009‐2013)‐‐‐ Knowledge Sharing for Solutions ‐‐‐• 20092009‐‐11• Review of Water Environmental Management• Starting with Two Fields of Topics• Domestic Wastewater Treatment• Climate Change and Water Environment
foff Specificp f Issues to be discussed•
Identification• 2012
2012‐‐13• Experiences Sharing and Knowledge Sharing among Member
Countries through Solution Findings through:• Workshops, Bilateral meetings, Annual meetings etc.
• Development of Twinning Programmes for Capacity
Empowerment etc.

3Common Challenges :Some of the Issues identified by WEPA Partner Countries‐ Legislation and Organization: Detailed systems and capacity
development required in order to implement a legislative
framework‐ Identification of proper paths for a new form ofdevelopment, leap frog approaches‐ Ensuring implementation of proper monitoring and data
management‐ Adequate settings of water quality standards/effluent
standards‐ Coordination among relevant water organizations andregulations‐ Partnership among NGOs, GOs and various stakeholders,
Cooperation between member countries, etc.
‐ Water quality management at the basin level‐ Integrated management?, upstream/downstream
relations, diversified stakeholders, multiphase problems,
long range optimization, etc.

Final Remarks• Development of information
platforms based on regional
partnership of various scales/levels
may contribute to formulating a
regionally common ground for thesustainable water environment
management.

Thank You

• Knowledge sharing is aneffective option for solving
regionally common issues onwater environment.

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