Water scarcity is one of the most pervasive challenges facing communities around the world. Access to clean water and shortages of this precious resource is ranked as the number one global risk in the World Economic Forum’s ‘G...
In September 2015 world leaders adopted an ambitious and challenging agenda for sustainable development: 17 goals and 169 targets to be achieved by 2030 without leaving anyone behind. This agenda provides an unprecedented opportun...
Australia has a long history of frequent droughts. Consequently, much of its water management has been geared to coping with drought. Storages have been built to provide reliable supplies to cities, towns and major irrigation syst...
The past 20 years has been a period of dynamic policy change and adaptation for the management of water supplies in Queensland during climatic extremes. The late 1990s and the 2000s were generally a dry period in the state, includ...
I came into this sector in 2009 as UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights to water and sanitation, new to the sector, a lawyer who had worked all my life with human rights. Luckily for me, I, and my sometimes challenging ideas,...
Queensland’s variability in rainfall is among the highest experienced in the world. This rainfall variability leaves the State vulnerable to extended dry periods, resulting in drought, which can sometimes persist for several yea...
Water defines Brisbane as a river city. It provides a sense of place through thousands of kilometres of waterways and sustains our population, biodiversity and natural areas. Water powers Australia’s New World City, which is hom...
Governments around the world have adopted the Sustainable Development Goals to stop and reverse the decline of water quality and the destruction of freshwater ecosystems. They have set ambitious targets to “improve water quality...
Last week, Communication Director Magazine, the magazine of my professional communications association, dropped through my letterbox. I opened it, flicked through it, and read some articles about a recent conference I attended. Re...
Climate change impacts are increasingly severe, more frequent and less predictable, impacting the wellbeing of societies, the economy and the sustainable management of water resources. The collection of, and most importantly, acce...
