Leading global experts from the water and utility management sectors and several high-ranking government officials discussed ways to better safeguard our planet’s most precious but finite natural resource at the Expo 2020 Dubai’s Water Week.

 

It was the final of 10 Theme Weeks across the World Expo’s six-month run, which ended on March 26, after seven days of expert discussions that covered key topics such as water security, future technologies and indigenous people’s knowledge as standout themes.

 

The Theme Week, a collaboration between Expo 2020 Dubai, the UAE Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure and the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, began on March 20, with World Majlis panel discussion Deep Blue: The (Other) Final Frontier – a collaboration with the Portugal Pavilion held at Terra – The Sustainability Pavilion.

 

Speakers included Ricardo da Piedade Abreu Serrão Santos, Minister of the Sea, Government of Portugal; Kathleen Swalling, maritime law and strategy advisor, and Managing Director, Nature Based Solutions and Burton Jones, Professor of Oceanography, the Red Sea Research Center, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

 

Jones warned of exploiting the deep sea without appreciating the environmental ramifications.

 

"It’s a unique ecosystem - we don’t fully understand that ecosystem yet … so, if we go start exploiting these before we understand the ecological aspects of it, we have the potential to destroy it before we knew what we had," he noted.

 

The next day, March 21, saw Nina Jensen, the CEO of REV Ocean, a state-of-the-art research vessel, and former Secretary-General of WWF Norway, join other maritime experts for a marine habitat-focused World Majlis, touting the role of next-gen robotics, AI and satellite monitoring in protecting marine ecosystems.

 

Suhail Mohamed Faraj Al Mazrouei, UAE Minister of Energy and Infrastructure; Saeed Mohammed Ahmad Al Tayer, Managing Director and CEO of Dewa and Hamad Buamim, President and CEO, Dubai Chamber of Commerce, then opened the Water Business Forum. 

 

It was a co-curation between Expo 2020 Dubai, Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Estonia, held at Dubai Exhibition Centre (DEC) on Tuesday, as Water Week approached the halfway mark on World Water Day (March 22).

 

Al Mazrouei spoke on the UAE Water Security Strategy 2036, while Al Tayer dubbed water security as a matter of national importance for the UAE. 

 

Erki Savisaar, Estonia’s Minister of Environment, touted the European country’s digitalisation success in water management in a later panel, alongside Dr Markus Lade, General Manager, Water & Wastewater, Siemens (Official Infrastructure Digitalisation Partner of Expo 2020 Dubai), who spotlighted the role of data in identifying and stopping water leakages.

 

Later that day (March 22), water experts gathered at Nexus for People and Planet event in a series of discussions tasked with reimagining the planet's relationship with water and exploring innovations to improve sustainable water use.

 

Mark Harbers, Minister of Infrastructure and Water Management, Netherlands, spoke on protecting the country’s groundwater reserves. 

 

"In the Netherlands, the three extremely dry summers we've had since 2018 have been a wake-up call in higher areas, groundwater levels are still too low … That's why we're here to find these answers, to implement them rapidly and to take better care of our joint treasure our groundwater. Groundwater may be out of sight, but it must not be out of our minds," he added.

 

The Nexus also hosted expert discussion The Indian Ocean|A Shared Heritage and Sustainable Future the following day with speaker Randall Mabwa, Regional Communications Officer, Blue Ventures, touting indigenous communities’ key roles in coastal conversation success.

 

"Once you realise that they have the right for management resources, then you put them first: it’s not nature and then people, its people and then nature," stated Mabwa.

 

"That's why this is called Programme for People and Planet – the people take care of the resources if you secure their rights. It's just putting them first," he added.-TradeArabia News Service