Water improves life - A photo exhibition
This photo exhibition illustrates one picture from a DUPC2 project on a weekly basis. It showcases each picture with a caption telling the story of people depicted and the way the project impacted their lives and improved water security.
Pictures are featured on IHE Delft’s official social media platforms:
IHE Delft’s Partnership Programme for Water and Development (DUPC2) facilitates solving water challenges in the Global South. Working with partners is vital to the activities of DUPC as well as those of IHE Delft.
Week 1: Exchanging thoughts in Costa Rica
The first photo of this online exhibition shows ''a workshop'' held in Costa Rica, symbolising “Stakeholders’’ participation as a corner-stone to sustainable management of Water Resources. Evidence4Policy project focuses on Colombia. However, project leaders had the intent to exchange experiences with countries in the region, and thus a joint workshop was held with Colombian partners in Costa Rica. Those ‘’stakeholders’’ were encountered in an ecological centre as a nice work of art, providing an impression of a diverse group exchanging thoughts on water development, a principle work-method between project leaders and partners!
Read more about this project here.
Week 2: Reaching out to farmers in Bangladesh
For the second week of the DUPC2 Photo Exhibition, we would like to present a photo by The Water Channel. This photo was taken by Masud Khan Polash, Jagrata Juba Shangha (JJS) in the Khulna region in Bangladesh. In this photo, we can see women in Bangladesh participate in a local water project. This is an example of women empowerment and inclusivity in the field of water and development.
The Water Channel is a communication platform of MetaMeta and supported by DUPC2. Together with The Water Channel IHE Delft organizes bi-monthly Alumni and partner online seminars.
Find out more about The Water Channel here.
Week 3: Establishing common grounds
This week on the #WaterImprovesLife photo exhibition, we feature an image taken during a meeting in Colombia between the local press, citizens and government officials from the city of Ibague in the department of Tolima, exchanging thoughts on approaches to sustainable water storage structures in the city.
These approaches aim to develop cooperation on the basis of 3 pillars: landslide analysis, discussion of climate change scenarios and creating a lab game to emphasize communication. This meeting is part of many activities organised under the S-MultiStor project which is a collaborative programme for research and innovation to meet water, food and energy sustainable development goals.
You can read more about this project in Colombia here.
Week 4: Teamwork and water management
For the fourth post of #WaterImprovesLife Photo Exhibition, we introduce the Tekeze Atbara project. In this photo, we can see a discussion between His Excellency, Ambassador Ato Shiferaw Jarso (left), and the Tekeze-Atbara research team including Dr. Yasir A. Mohamed, IHE Delft alumnus and Minister of Irrigation and Water Resources for Sudan, member of the 2019–2022 Transitional Cabinet, at HRC-Sudan, Wad Medani.
The operation of the reservoirs system (Girba and Upper Atbara Dams Complex) in Sudan and Tekeze Five in Ethiopia do not collaborate with one another. This greatly limits potential benefits from the water resources of the sub-basin. However, countries situated along the banks of rivers are willing to cooperate if mutual benefits of transnational water management outweigh those from the individual operation of the system.
You can read more about this project and initiative here.
Week 5: Flood based farming and community
For the 5th week of the Water Improves Life photo exhibition, we would like to introduce #FloodBasedFarming in the Mekong Delta in Vietnam under the DUPC2 Programme. In this specific project, the goal is to assist in saving sustainable and effective land and water for farmers and their community! In this week’s photo, we can see soil sampling being done in a flood-based rice farming system in An Phu district, An Giang province, Vietnamese Mekong Delta.
Week 6: Transforming faecal sludge into clean water and energy
For the 6th on the #WaterImprovesLife Photo Exhibition, we showcase a photo from Jordan where the #MobileMicrowave project makes use of a mobile reactor to treat faecal sludge and transform it into valuable resources including energy and clean water to cope with water scarcity, said by Dr. Hector Garcia Hernandez, Professor at IHE Delft & project leader. The system was operated and is still ongoing by local capacities including the private sector (Tehnobiro: Slovenia), local government (Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation Jordan), and The German -Jordanian University.
Week 7: Managing water, fighting mosquitoes
For the 7th week, we return to Colombia to illustrate the project: Managing Water, Fighting Mosquitoes: Climate Change, Gender, & Equity in Access to Water in Peri-urban Colombia. Which empowers female community members, mostly affected by diseases such as Zika and Aedes aegypti. It aims to improve the communities’ access to clean drinking water and to strengthen water sanitation, which will consequently help in decreasing the rate of mosquitoes-related diseases. This illustration is symbolic of the role of women in sanitation throughout Colombia, which is made by Colombian artist Angie Vanessita after participating in the project's meetings.
Week 8: Desalination, water reuse, and diplomacy
For the 8th Week of the #WaterImprovesLife Photo Exhbition, we would like to present the SCARCE Project. The SCARCE Project focuses on desalination and water reuse in the Middle East. In the MENA region, water scarcity is a major issue, to address this IHE Delft works closely with local partners. In Jordan, project SCARCE aims to strengthen capacities by, among other things, introducing advanced methods to monitor water quality parameters in the Jordanian gulf of Aqaba for desalination purposes. In this photo, a student is measuring the adenosine triphosphate of the samples collected over the depth of sea!
Week 9: Empowering local farmers, specifically women and the youth, in agricultural development
We showcase the project CES-Rural which focuses on efficient water management specifically in the agricultural sector of the Limpopo Basin (Zimbabwe and Mozambique). Partners in Zimbabwe and Mozambique are busy with conducting research on irrigation management and agroeconomic practises to contribute to the empowerment of women and youth to participate in the local socioeconomic development and to enhance food security.
This photo shows Mr. Mercute Ncube, and individual farmer in Matobo standing in his farm along the Shashane sand river. He uses fuel-powered pumps to water his farm where he grows crops such as wheat and vegetables throughout the year.
Week 10: Improving water availability for arid lands
For the 10th week of the DUPC2 Photo Exhibition, we would like to present the project A4Labs. A4Labs stands for Arid African Alluvial Aquifers Labs. A4Labs has a goal to co-develop, test, share, and discuss with farmers and partners in order to create not only a reliable, but also sustainable source of water for agriculture in 3 semi-arid to arid regions of Sub-Saharan Africa: Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe. For this week, there are multiple photos in the collection.
In this photos, we can see a smallholder farmer participating in action research on irrigated crop production along sand rivers in arid Africa, along with testing and learning from using solar-powered pumps to enhance productive use from sand rivers.
You can read more about this project here.
Bonus week: Achieving sustainable and universal water sanitation
Introducing a BONUS entry to the DUPC2 Photo Exhibition, we highlight the project: Boosting Effectiveness of Water Operators’ Partnerships: Knowledge Management and Exchange for the EU-WOP Programme, abbreviated in BEWOP4.
The goal of BEWOP4 is to strengthen the knowledge transfer between Water Operators’ Partnerships (WOPs), in order to maximise the potential for operation improvements of water operators, who despite being placed for sharing experience and technical expertise with their peers, yet they lack the didactical capacity to effectively transfer their knowledge, and that is what IHE Delft and the EU support.
WOPs are water operators funded by the European Union in many countries who jointly work to achieve sustainable and universal water and sanitation. However, those operators are facing tremendous challenges on many fronts. IHE Delft and the EU’s role is aiding WOPs to solve these challenges.
By transferring knowledge between operators and water sector capacity development institutes, BEWOP will support Water and Sanitation Operators to:
- Design and implement WOPs
- Mobilize the individuals, goodwill and financial resources they need to do WOPs effectively
- Better assess capacity needs
- Develop a learning culture so that Water Operators can better receive, create, manage and share their knowledge
- Identify and access the knowledge resources
- Monitor, evaluate and effectively communicate about the results achieved through WOPs.
Read more about BEWOP4 here and more about the EU's role here.
Copyright header image: Angie Vanessita