Session ID 13011
Summary
Learn more about this year’s Stockholm Water Prize Laureate, Professor Andrea Rinaldo, and the impact his innovative research has had on several academic fields. Join us for a program of talks with Professor Rinaldo and guests. Due to protocol, kindly note that seats should be taken no later than 08:55.
Session Description
The Stockholm Water Prize is the world’s most prestigious water award, presented every year since 1991 to men, women, and organizations in recognition of extraordinary water-related achievements. In the presence of the patron of the Stockholm Water Prize, H.M. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, and H.R.H Crown Princess Victoria, we will celebrate this year’s Laureate, Professor Rinaldo. The program is moderated by journalist Mr Pekka Heino.
The innovative and groundbreaking work of Professor Rinaldo has had a major impact on several academic fields, including hydrology, hydrogeomorphology and epidemiology. Professor Rinaldo has showed the key connections between river networks and the spread of solutes, aquatic species, and diseases. This research is used to protect biodiversity and to stem the spread of disease.
Programme
WELCOME
Ms Karin Gardes, Executive Director SIWI (acting)
INTERVIEWS ON STAGE
Professor Andrea Rinaldo, Laureate 2023
Ms Diane D’Arras, Nominating Committee Member
Professor Georgia Destouni, University of Stockholm
Ms Åsa Lindhagen, Vice Mayor of Stockholm
Mr Jonatan Persson, CEO & Founder Helios Innovations
Mr Philip Beetlestone, Director SIWI
Mr Stuart Orr, WWF
Mr Jon Lane, Recipient of SWP 1995 for WaterAid
MODERATOR / JOURNALIST
Mr Pekka Heino
Convenors
Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI)
Thank you your majesty your Royal Highness excellencies water prize laureates ladies and gentlemen a very good morning to you all and thank you for joining us here at Stockholm Waterfront and for those of you following this transmission online as well um acting executive director of the Stockholm International Water Institute
Good morning to you good morning now to get this thing started what is the role of the Stockholm water price well thank you Pekka and good morning to all of you your Royal Highness uh stock on water prize is the world’s most prestigious water award and and I’m of course incredibly proud
Of the influence it has had ever since it was first established in 1991. just as the theme of this year’s World water week the stock on water prize acknowledges excellence and innovation in its broadest sense over the years the prize has been presented both to top scientists but also to trailblazing practitioners
And both of these are actually essential for good and improved water governance and Water Management decisions that govern water must be based on the best available science and practical experience and good ideas and practices must be shared and the stock on water prize is therefore not only about recognizing
Astonishing people and achievements but just as important is how the prize helps make this science and these Solutions more well known and more available and ultimately more frequently used so we need this bridge between science policy and practice and I think that’s the real Spirit behind the Stockholm
Water prize being available being of use that is exactly the theme for this this morning’s uh meet the Laureate because we’re going to talk about how it affects our everyday lives you know people in general all over the world but this year’s uh Laureate let’s give him a big hand Professor Andrea Rinaldo
What would you like to say about the importance of of his work his research well this year’s Laureate Professor Andrea Ronaldo is is really a role model to us all not only has his groundbreaking research shaped several academic Fields but he has at the same time always paid
Particular attention and interest in how these insights can be applied in in real life and Dr Reynaldo has helped even someone like me to understand the complex interactions between the hydrologic cycle ecological processes and Landscape Evolution and it is complex it is complex that’s why I say maybe even I
Have understood a tiny little bitten portion of it you and me both yes a little bit but really thanks to to Professor Ronaldo’s research on on River networks we have a better understanding of how to tackle the spread of solutes invasive species species and disease hydrology is is often associated with fluid mechanics
Hydraulic Engineering that Professor Ronaldo took an alternative approach and developed new models to describe how water shapes the Earth’s surface and ecosystems and the importance of this is cannot be overstated to address water pollution or water contamination it’s of course essential to understand how solutes and pathogens move through the landscape
To protect biodiversity it’s crucial to combat invasive species and that requires knowledge on how they they travel and how they settle and to combat water-borne disease decision makers need to understand how pathogens survive and spread in water environments and how human Mobility affects the demography of disease in
Space and time and that is as far as I understand I’ll share one interesting fact with you that I’ve already learned from the professor is that all over the world if you just remove the names from the map All Rivers look the same because they behave the same
Yeah I picked up something they behave the same because that’s what nature does exactly yeah thank you Corinne thank you thank you okay I’m just trying to impress you know to begin very much I forgot to introduce myself sorry yes yes wonderful job I forgot to introduce myself my name is Pekka heno
And I have the honor of speaking with this year’s Laureate Professor Andrea Rinaldo we also have with us d’anderas from the Stockholm water price nominating committee welcome I will get back to you Diane but I would like to start with with Andrea you describe yourself as quote unquote a water man
What does that entail well probably it has to do with the with my origins of course no one evolutionary past cannot be free of constraints of where you started out I was born and raised in Venice your majesty in your right highness and that makes a permanent imprinting in in one’s life
Because they there you have a feeling that the symbiosis of have a context in which you live and for preoccupation for the future in fact that that in such a fragile environment are necessarily so so perhaps you have the highest level of of perception on what could be the
Dangers in fact of the changes this rapidly claiming rapidly changing beneath us so probably that’s the origin we will get back to Venice a little later on you’re a professor of hydrology and water resources at the cold Polytechnic Federal in Switzerland and also at the University of Padua in Italy so you
Travel quite a lot explain to me uh this and this is this is just a bit but very important part of your life car one seat eight seven eight yes I’ve been commuting a lot I’m a trained man and for 17 years dubbing a colleague in Padu I have a 17 most
Productive years of my life I’ve been commuting from pagua and lausanne and yeah two different worlds but um I’m very much attached to the University of Padua my alma mater which followed me around the steps of my career and I’m very grateful to the opportunities that the Swiss educational system put
Available to me so car one seat 75 I keep booking the same train throughout and I assume that the the seed took the shape of my bag yes but it’s it’s comforting isn’t it to know exactly where it’s your home away from home home between homes or something like that and trains are
Offices nowadays yeah I wrote books on that train actually yes I can concentrate I can yes it’s lovely traveling by train you have also described yourself as as first and foremost an engineer you’re very practical and that brings us back to what we were talking about with counting
Here that the things that you study you know how do we apply that to our everyday lives well I pretend that this is uh an aim I always had but if I can if I may uh my father was a real engineer and I come from a family of
Water engineers and and he never took seriously my job so he was asking what are you doing actually about Dad and he loved me dearly actually I did love him too and he will ask me what are you doing I’m I know that I’m writing a book
I said how about working oh oh that’s sleeping what happened you never pretended that ours is a job and probably is right yeah we should be paying access professors and what we do I’m going to get back to your dad later this evening at the banquet you have been warned
Now he’s probably looking at that Diane a civil engineer also full professor of hydrology and first and foremost in this context a member of the Stockholm water price nominating committee and this is important because you can already nominate for next year for 2024 and anyone can nominate so keep that in mind now
Um when it was time to discuss Professor Ronaldo you were the proponent and there was also an opponent and I have read in the in the committee’s protocol that it was hard to find negative opinions about Andrea Rinaldo as my wife okay we haven’t planned on bringing her
On stage but maybe we should now um and also from the from the written assessment concerning you uh Andrea quote unquote his research can explain what can be seen in the day-to-day life which is very important to raise awareness of decision makers and the general public uh now
Um we cannot of course talk about the other uh nominees that would be yeah no because it’s it’s a bit confidential yes so normally all our discussion are confidential so I will try to avoid to give information which I should not give what is true is that the criteria for
Election are clear in fact it has to be someone on policy or practice or research and we are we have really those criteria and the Committees try to look at the criteria and and evaluate they are of course very good candidates so it’s difficult so when you have
Proponent and opponent I want to be a more precise it’s a it’s a good practice and we I didn’t choose to be proponent or not I was asked if I agree to do that so I did my job because it’s a good way to in between the committee for the selected last
Selected tenor to have that kind of vision see what is in favor and and what is maybe uh different so it’s it’s a process in fact and there is no it’s just a good way to look for each candidate what are the criteria to really push and what maybe are the
Weakness or or if weakness there are so each candidates and it was not my decision it was I was asked to do it I did it yeah but of course I was I was as many of those of the committee we we enjoy and I don’t
Think I have to explain a lot why we choose you because Carrie not already explained very well and so I think it’s um it’s uh it’s clear that the criteria are scientific sometimes or in case it’s policy it’s different and and we were really uh interested in several things
So scientific but as you said it is important also for the committee and the nomination committee to see that it it is applied because you could have very sophisticated research and then some other people do apply you did that you try to have application and and concrete application and also the diffusion
How you try to diffuse and give it to the others that is very important so the criteria are quite clear and it’s uh of course sleeping to to go further to to increase knowledge but also to to be sure that that knowledge will be applied and will be used by others those
Criteria are very important that as you say there is a new call and I think it would be very interesting that lots of people come because I think it’s it’s part of the interest and and look at who where the uh Stockholm motor price to to see where they are around
And I think it is really interesting and I hope next year we will have again lots of good candidates but do say something more about the application because that’s you know what we’re trying to talk about here that how does it apply to well the application there is a call
Which people have and of course you have to be nominated by people who have to explain uh the the application of um well the application is very interesting because um as it was said uh Eco hydrology now can predict or modalize uh species in the water or sediment or things like
That so the first application where on porous media to understand where sedimental and it’s very complex but now there is also about species and on biodiversity is very important to understand because it’s it’s complex they they don’t follow the water always sometimes they they can be in in a part
And then go slowly and whatever the water has different way to go from one point to another it’s not it’s not a tube it’s it’s sophisticated and also water water disease so one of the application you you work on was cholera and as I always said probably
You can’t avoid epidemi but you can give the solution or or you can be the show how to react and how to adapt and that is of course very interesting because uh people uh in the day-to-day life need to know what to do and how they can do and
It can open about a bit the mind of uh people who have to apply strategy as we’ve said several times these are very complex matters but but I think the most important thing is that to try and understand what is about to happen and the different scenarios where we are
Headed and then when you know that you can work out some sort of solution uh like with the I mean River networks and waterborne diseases that are those the most important things would you say in your research I will say yes one one I think of first
Of all right of course but um one important thing my fascination with River Network starts with the work of a French engineer and mathematician Benoit mendelberg who actually taught us that the mountains are no cones clouds are not spheres nor Coastline has simple broken lines nor does lightning
Traveling straight lines we look at different eyes after 3000 years to be geometry of Nature and there’s something which come to uh to other issues shows what you remarked so appropriately before these if you take out the scale bar from a map of a river you don’t know
Whether the Amazon or a creek behind the Stockholm because nature makes us shapes alike statistically indistinguishable those scales and that is it it’s important it happens in the universe it’s a particular type of the assistance that it could do thousands of different things and we do always the same
Regardless of the millions of possible outcome that you have for something very important even philosophically behind it but that kind of robustness transfers to what happens on those networks so something which was completely out of reach predicting for instance what biodiversity seen in the river network does became feasible became robust so we
Can put a price tag on the ecosystem Services which is something in which in the past hampered our capabilities to be able to put I mean to have a proper evaluation of a Wealth of Nations as Landers put it because it’s indicators or wealth indicators like gross domestic products give an
Idea of a wealth but unless you put together the natural Capital into it and I’m sure that Verizon aids with a lifelong commitment of a royal family on those issues means that the natural Capital has to be part of the equation and if we can provide compelling in fact evaluations quantitative evaluations
That’s what it happened and as per of the disease much of science proceeds by serendipity but we were doing something completely different and Marino gato visit and myself on a walk getting back to a meeting of the pontifical Academy of Sciences in Rome many years ago we realized
Serendipity exactly that the same type of mathematical tool that we used to be unknown and applied to biodiversity could apply to disease so a first we could specially explicit models of Cholera were born that night and you mentioned earlier uh water Prize Laureate from 2002 Ignacio you two have
Worked together 40 years yes I’m missing him so much and I’m and I’m glad in front of your majesty and your whole highness to mention 2002 stock about the prize winner who passed away last October was very dear to me easily the best ideologist ever in my view thank
You for asking yes and and you you mentioned that you have to put a price tag on things it’s so easy to say that oh fresh water is priceless because you think you’re you’re doing fresh water service but it’s exactly actually a disservice I mean you have to have a
Price tag otherwise how would you evaluate I mean okay we’re running out of fresh water how much does it cost to bring it back it’s priceless precisely for I mean say that something use Priceless means it’s no economic value it has to be part of the equation
And part of the equation means a solid down-to-earth engineering approach in putting that value in and I think in that sense we’re not claiming if everything hinges or even networks of course many systems are not controlled or constrained by those Etc but Macho biodiversity in fact leaves a variable
Network and and then we can start from there will large scale Water Management plants of a future hinging on River networks be able to include in the equation the the reduction of the loss of biodiversity that’s something very important can we see how Disease propagates by looking at
The map of a river we can and that’s that’s why so kindly I think I was a word of the price which I’m very very proud humbled but proud what was the first thing that came to your mind when you got the call Katarina called and it was interesting
Because that connects to the train I was actually in the train ride from the the Swiss border to the Italian one and for a sizeable amount of time the connection is on and off so I see a strange number on my phone and then the connection goes
You thought it was in fact you thought it was right what is it about an hour until I reached close to Milan was it that long yes oh yes and then she called back you were sitting there sort of all nervous in it what’s happening I’m sorry we lost connections and you
Have been nominated from a stocking water prize oh fantastic will you accept the prize falling down it was a good thing that you weren’t driving a car at the moment no no let’s change her life go always travel by train then you won’t get shocked now
This man is I don’t know if you know that he used to be very involved he is still involved or he used to be a high level rugby player and yes impressive isn’t it and Diane you have said that this experience actually helps in his
Well today when I met my work of uh proponent I of course went on internet it was absolutely not in the the uh the file we received but I did that and I discovered that he was a high level rugby player in the 70s so I
Was really impressed uh of course we are judging uh science but I’m personally convinced that that experience has really influenced Ronaldo Andrea in in the way you work because you when you play Rook B and I discuss with him afterwards when you play Rigby and I have some who did play rugby there
Is really a team spirit you work together you there is at the end someone who put the ball but I mean it’s because all have done that and I think it was a probably a very good experience and he has been using that skill to make people work together
He spoke about the LA 22 20 2002 Stockholm price which has been always always working with you and us until the last time and I think it shows what it is important to science need people who are able to share to work together and to try to transform the information and
Make a transformation in order to get the point this was part of the talk uh the other day uh the seaweed corner here that people from from different parts of you know the Water World need to get together work together for the greater good do you agree on the analysis
Concerning rugby and your work it touches my heart what I’m saying is that John o’drisco like probably hopefully the next World Record President says something but once you put your shirt of your country you can’t do words afterwards he can only do worse because I mean representing your country means a
Lot and rugby as uh so appropriately Diane said it’s uh it’s all about it’s all about teamwork it’s about collaboration it’s about support of course but it’s a taxing sport it’s not the sport for the cunning the best wins in rugby so the issue is that the results is The
Logical consequence of the effort you have put in there how prepared you are and so is science and so yes and and perhaps I had a misfortune slash fortune that um I became a scientist as a plan B because I broke my ligaments early on I was 24.
Ah so I had to give up an international career because at that time you couldn’t fix them so a blessing or a misfortune I don’t know but certainly I was a plan B blessing for water at least yes I don’t know yes Diane thank you very much we’re
Going to see each other tonight because you’re going to introduce the professor when it’s time to receive congratulations thank you so much now Andrea I said we were going to come back to Venice in 1966 there was a a disastrous flood you were living there with your family how did that affect
Always a gentleman also lindorgan welcome I’ll we’ll get back to you and yes the flood of 1966. how did that affect your family you need to adjust your mic a little oh sorry just to stand up yep is it okay just turn it up a little bit nope now it’s
I’m clumsy as you imagine so I think we need some professional help also lindogan vice mayor of Stockholm we’re going to talk about the water situation in Stockholm and uh Andrea hasn’t been forewarned about this but he will probably join in anyway you have as I said vice mayor and
Uh environment and climate are the issues that you work with how is the fresh water of Stockholm today what are the biggest problems challenges well if we looked at What About Us in in our city they have in improved if we compare to the mid of the 20th century a
Lot but still the water bottles are not feeling well and I mean that is often the case in many metropolitan areas and so it’s also the case in in Stockholm we have problems I mean the main issues for our what about this is the eutrophication and it’s also
Environmental toxins and of course there is I mean one big challenge in in cities is that we have many hard surfaces so the water has nowhere to go I mean it doesn’t get soaked into the soil for example it follows the hot surfaces and flows down into our water bodies and and
Affects the water quality so that’s one challenge that we have in the cities and also that we as humans don’t take care about nature enough we have a history of in heavy Industries in Stockholm that has affected what about it but also now we pour Plastics and pollutants different kind of pollutants
Into the water so we’re not taking care of of this very not Priceless resource but actually a resource with the high price but it makes you wonder how and why did it get to go so far and and get so bad well I do think when it comes to all
Environmental issues and when it comes to the climate emergency that we now have on our planet that it’s a symptom how of uh when it comes to water it’s just a symptom of how we treat nature in general human beings and and how we treat our planet and of course I also
Think that politicians have a very big responsibility to to change this and uh it’s just obvious if we look around the situation on the planet today that we are not taking that responsibility in the way we should and that also applies to water but of course we can change
This I mean it’s not a law of nature we can of course take responsibility and during recent years in Stockholm we have put much more financial resources into the work of cleaning our water bodies and also of course which is very important I mean both cleaning Waters
But also stop the flows of of toxins and and pollutants into the waters now Andrea you haven’t you haven’t been as I said 4-1 so you haven’t had an opportunity to look specifically at Stockholm but what would you say are I mean a city about the size of Stockholm
Or Stockholm itself with fresh water on one side and then the brackish sea water on the other what would you see as as the challenge is to to keep the water though there are experts here on the Baltic in particular but I see that the Baltic and the Mediterranean are cradles
Of civilization and we should leave the world and take your responsibility as you said it’s time is right to take full responsibility of our actions and uh and and those ecosystem Services we took for granted for so long it should be clear that they have a price to be paid by the
Community and realize how important to do to look at sustainability in a modern in a modern sense in a concrete one yeah so I completely agree with you completely I’m tempted to say that isn’t it sexy enough for politicians to to deal with stuff that is underground like for
Instance you know the pipes and the distribution of water you want to put the money you know where people can see it that oh look see what I’ve done if it’s down there and costs you know millions and millions and millions hmm I’m not gonna argue with you on that
One actually I I think you do have a point uh but I also think you you have to enter into politics because you you have a passion about something and and and we it doesn’t matter we we need to take responsibility because we need to take care of nature not uh only be
Focusing on on getting more votes I mean you have to have a passion for for changing things and improving things and I think also that especially in Sweden we have taken uh water for granted so of course that also means why should we put money into it we have lots of waters
Water everywhere uh but I’m not at all convinced that that will be the case in the future and we also see uh that when it comes to climate change we were just talking about that before we started here uh that um we more and more will
See that water will be uh I mean in the center of the climate emergency also that we will have um a very lack of water everywhere in the world in the world and also we will be affected in Sweden that is one of the yes the one of the big issues we’re
Going to talk about that later as well that water issues have a problem to reaching the the uh to getting the attention they need because climate is you know overshadowing uh everything else yes in order to comment on that and yes they we had a seminar a royal Swedish Academy of Agriculture and
Forestry and uh one thing was said which I think uh um it’s it’s probably the only upside of a climatic change that we are facing is it disasters the inter arrival of disasters now it’s becoming shorter that the intervals between elections so probably probably we’ll have politicians paying attention actually more more
That’s good that’s good and as I said the distribution of water uh the pipes and this is not just a problem for Stockholm I read somewhere that is a problem for the entire country of Sweden that we need to you know put several Millions into the ground because
The pipes are leaking and and uh you know does it need do we need a disaster I mean a catastrophe for something really serious to be done about this they sometimes I actually wonder if that is enough I mean we have seen this summer and the disaster tour of the
World and people are dying already because of climate change and it’s a tragedies all over the world so um apparently we do need that but I’m sad to say that I I do believe in that we need we really need to wake up now when it comes to the situation on the
Planet uh because we don’t want it to be too late when politicians take full responsibility we have a lack of time and also when we we talk about water in Stockholm we I mean we do have an old Wastewater Network system so we need to make huge Investments to be able to take
Care of the water better and increase the capacity right now when it’s raining heavy rains in Stockholm means that we have a risk of Wastewater entering into our water bodies and with climate change It Will Rain much more so we need to really do these Investments because that’s also threatening the quality of
The water I believe you and have you have said that the climate change is expected to intensify hydrologic extremes and it’s not you know about droughts and extreme rain I mean they go together which may seem strange I mean it’s Ryan then you get all the rain and
The rain doesn’t go into the groundwater because it’s the ground is too dry or you know the the what is really impressive is the acceleration that we see in the consequences is the rapidity of a change and if you look at indicators of weather sources or the economic whether you’re
Talking about the concentration of greenhouse gases you’re talking about the population you’re talking about the fish exploit the fish Nursery areas exploitation Etc all of them have a behavior which is called the hockey stick diagram which in Sweden should be one of the National Sports in fact is
Hockey that is something from since we started to measure somewhat regularly early 18th century 1710 for instance the longest time series of daily precipitation started in 1710 in the observatory of Galileo wow in fact in Padua but what you see is that is that a Hollow Scene like flat thing for about
200 and some years and in 1950 they start going up like a hockey stick it’s the pace of change if it is scary yes and that before you know that this this hasn’t sunk into the collective Consciousness and this that the scientist and what the politicians
Should have bear in mind very clearly so it’s the pace of change yes it worries that is very scary indeed uh you have also said that uh it seems like development thinking and environment thinking are stacked against each other it’s like buildings versus ecosystems well that is a quote from pasta major
Environmental economies professor in Cambridge and he said yes development economics which is a paradigm in in how we work etc is stacked against nature environmental economics inside is something which you consider as we were commenting before The Wealth of Nations has to include the natural capital and the downside was that we couldn’t
Put the price tag in the past now we know how to it’s clear that economic indicator of flat economic indicator of reaches to give the sense of the wealth and the poverty of Nations because what happens is that left alone without and that’s that’s ideological I have to say
Unless the intervention of a state of entities Sovereign entities if you leave the system alone you will find a distribution of wealth anywhere is self-organized into a curve in which 80 percent of the wealth is in the hands for 20 percent of our richest persons well it’s almost inevitable those curves
Are called zip law of wealth it’s in the US in Bangladesh wherever you are with different total amount but with same behavior it’s a self-organized behavior we shouldn’t let the system go like that we have to control it I am very much fond of State control on those measures in fact
Please see it you can shake hands while you’re sitting down so you don’t mess your microphone you’re not I cannot award what can you do is Italian thank you also thank you thank you so much it’s an honor I have to understand [Applause] now um what what I was trying to talk about
Earlier Venice and 1966 the flooding uh how did that affect your family well it affect me personally and I I come from a family of water Engineers my father my grandfather was yeah my friend they’re good friends very dear friend of mine and a distinguished colleague yes constant instructions now let’s go
To Venice 1966. so I mean I come from a whole family of hydraulic Engineers so it was kind of a daily discussion but in Venice everybody teaches Hydraulics because the sense of participation to the Fate in such a fragile environment in fact I mean since centuries the citizen the layperson has been
Participating to the debate uh whether or not the the serenissima Republica paid any attention is debatable I’ve been insulted by a few historians because I have a feeling that he couldn’t care less they looked like they wanted to show attention and the culture of the time was not but what happened in
1966 is that the water raised it was a major flood you heard about Florence for instance the disaster down to the cultural heritage in their masterpieces have been destroyed and took like 20 years to kind of recover out of it in that is what happened nobody died but
The water went almost two meters above mean sea level it is 100 of the city was flooded but what was most important is that the storm surge that generated it stayed up for 15 hours above 1.5 meters when 100 of the seat is flooded in about 20 hours
So you used to be thinking of those cycles of ups and downs of let the moon sweep the Lagoon a famous oceanographer said well it went up go down it went beyond the level in which even the the elementary Plumbing the plugs the electric plugs were were all started
All the deposits of oil of whatever fuel you had in town so when finally the world has receded the misery Left Behind was really touching and the sense that probably we wouldn’t know whether Venice Will Survive and and it happened in the past quite a few capitals have been abandoned in fact
In historic times was that the case will Venice survive in the future with something which I very much like to call your attention but it’s a different story someone even even told you when you brought this up said that well I sympathize but nobody cares if Venice
Disappears which is it happened to me yeah it happened to be the conference a distinguished Professor when I was saying that will Venice survive what if Venice dies and the guy said who cares well I hope you do care because then you say it’s a symbol of our responsibilities actually
One of the most important symbols of our responsibility and the template on how in fact you have to act opposing climate change whenever the built environment cannot be relocated is always in my mind of course yeah uh professor of hydrology and hydrogeology at the Stockholm University so happy you
Could join us despite being slightly incapacitive capacitated this was due to Heavy Rain making the floor wet and you slipped yeah so water again so glad you could join us but you too you go way back how did it start what the thing that comes to mind well we go
Really way back since I was a PhD student and of course the thing I remember most is again Venice and the summer school in environmental dynamics that you have created and kept going for years and years so that was so inspiring for me to be in that summer school first as a
Student then coming back as assistant still a student and eventually as a lecturer fantastic and then we have met on various other science occasions of course and you also wrote a support letter for Andreas nomination so tell us now and just you know let let the the praise just come
Why is he especially worthy as the Laureate this year Well we we’ve heard a lot of things already Andrea is the world leader in water science and what is the most impressive and and part he’s not like the tendency to take is to look at some process some component and focus on that
And make great contributions but Andrea has linked has gone through various aspects of water and water science and linked them and done so so from how the water shapes the landscape how it carries with it pollutants sediments um pathogens and then how that links to biodiversity to our health human health
And and animal health so linking these all these different facets of water and water science and doing it with the rigorous scientific framework and approach that is fantastic and that is exactly what we need you both have studied the spreading of diseases through water so tell us about
That you were telling us a little bit earlier about uh yeah yeah as I mentioned the origin is Serendipity but is we thought that we saw that um that well one of the the great features that um and I’m very grateful to my my epfl you know the Swiss
Universities that I could do field work I could do laboratory work I put up a wet lab and do a mathematical description which is where we started out we were born in fluid mechanics which is a rational way of describing mathematically how nature works and an important colleague said that unless
The language of nature is mathematics actually so the federating thing that we have unless we frame it mathematically we don’t feel it’s completely understood so and we soon realized that the same mathematical tools that apply to other things neutral Theory biodiversity great tradition of Science of all kinds would
Apply to disease and then we started collecting data and we said and that got into something completely different because for instance where do disease go where people go and the Very was known since middle ages and because you know isolating cities to prevent against contagia was having had
Been ongoing since 19 000 years or whatever again what is different now the pace because look at the pandemic we covid-19 pandemic in the past the black plague took 20 years to propagate on a global scale now we took at one flight from Wuhan to Toronto to spread it worldwide it was so
Much faster so much faster it’s the pace of events even in the way you see it so you’re starting watching and realizing that nowadays I met a story which I think it’s very interesting you can track people’s Mobility with unprecedented unprecedented accuracy through the GPS you have in your cell phone
For good or for bad now upsides and downsides all one says for instance the fact that you can track mobility of a grand scale is a big data problem it can handle very nice you see where people goes and if you impede in fact in the early covet covid-19
Outbreak there was a complete lockdown in Italy and from reforms you knew that people wouldn’t stay at home my country is adorable but not very ruly when it comes to opening conditions Etc on the other hand if you go to the south of the world
And you see that the ownership of a cell phone is not socially biased but having safe water at home it is socially biased it’s something we can really cannot turn our head on the other side so it’s let’s talk about this new normal let’s talk about modernity and let’s
Think what’s good about modernity but let’s reject firmly what is not good about anything yeah what about your perspective on on the spreading of diseases well uh I have looked at it at some other diseases and you have and in particular those that are prevalent in the Nordic and Arctic region
And this is a region you talked about the pace of change this is a region where the pace of change is faster than in other parts of the world and of course going from water to health is a quite straightforward connection everyone I think can understand that and
We wanted to look at how this change the changes in climate and water conditions would affect a range of different diseases that we see here in the north and in the Arctic I went about it in a in a bit different way you looked at this actual spreading of the pathogens
Uh the way we have looked at it is how various types of changes not just the spreading but but how conditions are from mosquitoes for ticks for uh affect different diseases like TB tularemia cryptosporidiosis and Etc so we have both gone the the pathway of looking connecting water to health and
Disease spreading but there are so many ways you can look at that but key I think in both what what we both do is this new access to data huge data that was also the reason we see a lot of environmental climate water data being now openly accessible around the world
Which means we can interrogate it in in new ways and learn so much more than we could so far and we can start to see the connections and put together the puzzles so this data availability but also our ways of handling the data have improved a lot with artificial intelligence and new modeling
Approaches and better computer capabilities so these have been important pushes for for us to be able to do this work yeah no no he is a superb scientist I know I that’s why she’s here together but one thing that I I’d like to mention is that and what she said and what she
Champions is very important no one can consider himself safe in terms of climate change not even Sweden it’s abundance of rain Etc figure for instance and let’s forget for a minute our anthropocentric view we’re talking about human disease couple of degrees war of what of air temperature which means that for instance proliferate
Kidney disease will have disappearing salmonids from the Alps it’s an iconic thesis it’s very important and this could migrate North so no one is safe that’s her message which I subscribed completely so we touched upon the upon this uh in the talk with USA lindhorgan and you said
When you received the price or you haven’t received the price yet but when you found out that you were the Laureate that maybe this will give me the ears of the decision makers I personally think find it very worrying that there are so many world leaders who
Just don’t give a hoot about what we’re talking about right now how do we change that a small question we are fortunate in Sweden we have a royal family we so much attach those issues that’s a good example that’s a good thing that’s a very good thing yes but there are politicians you
Know and they don’t as we already uh talked about that they tend to look at things at a very short-term perspective and this is this is a marathon yeah it’s not a but that it’s not just a marathon it’s we’re talking about water and specially water on land that’s where we
Live that’s where we feel the have to live through all the effects and the changes this is a very very messy problem so water comes into every aspect of Our Lives we are 60 70 percent water ourselves each one of us and whatever all the life is is water but also our
Societies so water touches upon everything and because it does that the tendency has been and because it looks so different its manifestations look so different on land you have Rivers you have groundwater soil water water in the plants you have all kinds of manifestations of water and we tend to
Look at them separately fragment everything so we have like tens of different to hundreds of different institutions working with different aspects of water and of course the danger here when you but it’s the same water it’s the same water that is lacking when you have droughts that comes back in huge amounts
When you have floods that carry the species and carry the pathogens and pollutants so if but if we fragment it like this and we because it’s a messy problem we make different assumptions and if the assumptions that are made in the different problems and by different institutions are different of course
Somewhere there is it’s wrong it’s wrong so if we don’t start connect the things we’re working with the wrong premises for a lot of different problems so consistency so putting linking things together that’s what I you know admire so much in your research and that’s what I think we need to do we
Need to do it because we need to find consistency not because it’s pretty uh scientifically interesting because if we don’t we do the wrong things we understand the problem erroneously and what we need to do to solve any problem is to understand plan get prepared and of course look at
Innovations throughout this whole process and to do this we have to take things seriously we have to do the right thing that is the one doing the right with us is a messy problems so we can’t blame the politicians not we do it ourselves too this fragmentation well I
Think we should actually convince politicians that the best way forward is to make mistakes on the side of science science issue because we it regenerates it continuously controls itself there’s a self-control mechanism embedded science is the answer to the best of our knowledge we’re not perfect of course
We’re valuable but it’s it’s uh that’s the way forward and Sweden is an example in that respect I agree with you Andrea is is terrific thank you for joining us thank you so much congratulations now Andrea do you know I’m slowly getting back do you know who said
Um uh don’t listen to me listen to science yes and here’s another youngster okay you’re nice to meet you sir nice to meet you nice to meet you too always listen to younger yes always listen to you’ve had how many scholars under your wings can you even count them what do you mean
Scholars colleagues no the people you’ve taught and who’ve become scientists uh researchers themselves quite a few yes I’m very proud of it my academic family which is here today in large part I said yeah it’s the most important thing because it talks about a journey it’s big or small our Discovery talks about
The journey which you Embark without knowing what would have happened in fact I was mentioning something yesterday to the junior guys to to Foster and to kind of propel their enthusiasm Etc the fact is what a wonderful Journey it is if you’re accompanied by institutions and colleagues and friends like it happened
To me I’m very grateful that’s that’s what I my most coveted the world in fact yeah you’re not a passion you are the CEO of Helios Innovations and you were the Stockholm Junior water prize finalist in 2019. yeah yes it’s a great pleasure to be here again and see some
Familiar faces yes and some of the youngsters over there yeah the finalists of this this year now going back to four years that was right before the pandemic 2019. yeah it was the last finalist before pandemic right out of Sweden how about if you go back and if you think
About where you are now what were the immediate benefits or Consequences or opportunities that came by being part of the competition uh well a lot of things have happened since then when I was a finalist I had or what I was a finalist for was that I developed a new desalination
Method that could utilize low temperature waste heat to treat salt water and that’s what I presented at this competition and now we changed a bit but I will come back to that but this to be a finalist in this uh really wonderful award it was both an inspiration to find new friends among
Other countries and learn new insights but I especially remember being a finalist it’s quite a intense period where you have the conference during the day and you have fun during night but I also had a application to the vinova Swedish Innovation agency to yeah it was an award of 300 000 Swedish
Crowns and the deadline was the same night as the banquet uh the night before the banquet I stayed up during the hotel and worked to I think three in the morning and finished the application and I sent it in uh and a few months afterwards I was awarded the Grant and
That made gave me the opportunity to really start the company and scale up from an idea to something industrial so it was an intense a few days in a few years ago those other things you can do when you’re young I mean you stay up all night and then you know sending whatever
And then go to a banquet know that there was a Stockholm Junior water price of course I did of course and I know about his achievements actually which is quite remarkable yeah yesterday I was commenting on on the ceremony but we’re looking forward to see some of the past winners of Junior
Enterprise winning the Stockland water prize we probably because of age just given its start in 1991 we’ll have to wait for a while but we can’t wait it could happen that way it will happen that would be very nice tell us a little bit more about your project the desalination of seawater
Yeah so I I come from the city of hamster in south of Sweden where I on my young years there was always watering bans and water shortage so I was thinking how could we solve this problem and the easiest way is to clean treat salt water because they are
Endless amount of oceans so I developed a new technology that could do exactly this we used waste heat to evaporate sea water and we collected a clean drinking water and After High School I scale it up to an industrial test pilot we treat around 50 000 liters of water per day
And we see that the technology could work but unfortunately as said earlier today water might be Priceless but people don’t pay for it we tried to sell it both in Sweden and Denmark but we couldn’t succeed so luckily in perhaps a Act of like desperate desperation we pivoted so instead of focus on
Cleaning water to drinking water we focused on the most heavy polluted water that we could find so from treating sea water we then switch to treating liquid hazardous waste so basically highly concentrated really contaminated Wastewater polluted by heavy metals oil residue pfas and many other chemicals so the price point
For drinking water was four crowns per cubic meter now we use the same technology to treat liquid hazardous waste from heavy Industries and most expensive ways to treat the cost is 4 000 crowns per cubic meter so it’s a huge difference where we now in the last
Year has seen interest from the market and brought up several commercial units operating down in south of Sweden so now we are treating water in an industrial scale and that’s been a fantastic Journey well I was just getting to that how was the response been since you started the company and
Yeah so the first few years it was a bit tough as always and now we have been in a quite intensive development process where we built our first what we thought would be the first commercial unit lost Autumn we tried it saw that the waste was a little bit too tough for
Our first design so we built a new one but this summer we we started our first commercial units and we currently have several orders and we only see more coming in so it’s been a and it’s also about regulation because 50 of all the customers we are working
With previously let out their Wastewater directly into their water bodies because that there have been regulation on heavy metals and PFA or heavy metals and oil residue but things like chlorides nutrients they have just been let out in the water bodies even Inland so now around 50 of their customers have
Water that needs to be treated but no technology to treat it or nowhere else to put it so we only see an increase of demand in the future how does it all this sound to you Andrea well I’m totally impressed about what they have achieved
I have to say that um let’s talk about the desalination idea you had in the beginning clearly if you look forward the issue of water scarcity has been tackled in particular in Israel whose water management is absolutely Top Class it hinges on three pillars and all of them could be a lesson
Worldwide the first one is a desperate attention to losses and to proper conception that kind of frugality and and the idea of saving water was probably not the most important factor but certainly psychologically it’s very important the second thing desalination desalination are relatively small quantities of water because it’s energy
Intensive it costs of course Etc it’s only for urban drinking water supply and the most important thing is 80 percent 89 in Israel recycling of treated Wastewater injected into aquifers and then used for agriculture the largest user with that in a in a climate that ranges from arid to
Semi-arid they export portable water to Jordan so it’s uh your idea was very wrong in the general election I’m impressed by entrepreneurship and that you put in there so very best of luck to you thank you so much thank you Jonathan for joining us thank you thank you so much we speak later
Now the very first talk I had with you Andrea or shall we wait until you’ve greeted our next yes see what aurum Philip beetlestone welcome nice to meet you nice to meet you nice to meet you one of the very first talks I had with
You back in March when we were doing the um announcement of of you being the Laureate you described yourself with one word you said militant militant yes yes I am I am and I think it um learning institutions should be vocal about what’s wrong with the authority that
Comes from the science side that we discussed yes I am militant I am militant I’m militant domination issues on how to save my birthplace and how about the build and the national environment to go on Etc yes I am I confess so welcome Stuart Orr uh freshwater leader leader at uh World Wildlife
Foundation Switzerland and Philip beetlestone representing the Stockholm International Water Institute a civil engineer specialized in groundwater thank you very much thank you welcome uh now Stuart I read a blog post of yours from December last year where it was your call to war if I may call it
Wake up to Rivers Yes exclamation point yeah absolutely I mean I I and first of all thank you for being here uh I love me to be here I think that the science and the work that you’ve done has been inspirational to my institution and my scientists certainly the focus on Rivers
Is the heart of our freshwater work around the world uh we work in over 80 countries on fresh water issues so we see these River issues um at the core of our work of course for biodiversity conservation and and human development Etc but of course you’ve talked about
The climate crisis being in the news almost on a daily basis these days we’re seeing it it’s raising attention probably for the wrong reasons yet it’s bringing attention to the fact that we are shining a bright light on the systems that we have modified and dredged and diverted and and not paid
Attention to and not valued and I think the call that we make is very in line with the science of Dr Ronaldo which is the natural processes the importance of these processes the natural Capital the undervaluation of these systems and what they mean not just for biodiversity but to society
Economy for the future for the adaptation to climate change and resilience of the future right as you wrote in in your post valuing rivers in the era of climate and nature crisis I mean very important and and you have said um and and this just brought to my mind
That you know as long as there have been people on this Earth we’ve tried to control the water control the rivers try to lead them in Samantha other direction where they want to go but as you said Andrea I mean nature tends to use produce the same forms every river will
Always do the same thing because that is what rivers do it is it is yes and am I just on this occasion just talking about the importance of rivers the the importance of a former uh Stockholm water Prize Laureate Sandra postel yes whom I whose
Work I haven’t met her but I admire her work very very much and pillars of sand and plentitude Etc the other message that comes from that which relates to that you see how fast nature regains it’s proper I can tell you I normally show those militant talks
I’m giving I’m showing you a picture taken during the lockdown in uh of science letters regards the 200 years old institution has a palace of a grand canal and it was a picture which is upside down because it was so flat for growing Canal just because of a lockdown
No boat no nothing at all but you could actually invert the thing that you wouldn’t even notice then I was the administrator I had to show up I opened one of those things in one of those canals I saw an octopus an octopus is infinitely sensitive to the cleanness of
Water yeah it’s only in one and a half months nature would take back what was his place yeah so the Hope forever is that the virtue we can do that very fast that’s a lesson to us all because you have uh you have also touched on that way healthy rivers are so important
To us to to deal with the impacts of climate change absolutely I mean I think if I look at our work that we’re doing right now in the in the Mekong system or in the Ganges a lot of work is being focused now on nutrients and sediment flow unfortunately through our
Development over the last 40 50 years we’ve choked that sediment upstream and trapped it and it’s not going Downstream to the Delta at that time when we really need Deltas to be the protector of of climate change impacts they are being drained of of their sediments and and
And that’s a real problem for all of us so you see these things playing out the health of rivers the health of biodiversity means healthy people healthy economies and to the point that Dr Ronaldo’s just make something that’s interesting in Europe right now is the removal of redundant structures in
Rivers and I appreciate that we do need to modify river systems for water supply and other needs of course but there’s a lot of redundant structures in European rivers one meter to 20 meters high and over the last three years the energy and the interest in removing these has been incredible and you’re
Right Dr Ronaldo you can immediately watch that first fish swim up River for the first time and people love it and I think that if there’s a good story to be telling about what we do as water professionals is that people are connecting with the rivers and we can
Show Improvement going forward and I think that’s important we have to have good stories do you have any specific example of that because that sounds good no across Europe we’ve got many I think Finland is leading the charge on this I think Finland has removed over 500 redundant structures over the last three
Years very aggressively taking these out and the videos that you can see and and the people involved it’s very exciting communities are getting involved people want their Rivers back go Finland my birthday yes Philip um I’m just going to give you three letters well two letters and one number
S2s what is that thank you very much for this opportunity but I think work for us it’s the connectedness again it’s starting at the catchment the upper catchment again we always look on land and we talk about water on land catchments but it goes beyond that I
Think it plays out in the oceans be whatever we do on the land and be it pollutants against sediments again It ultimately ends up in the sea or S2s the source to see and how that plays out but I think looking at the catchment we always want to pristine catchment that
Would be our ideal With No Boundaries letting the systems play out but unfortunately unfortunately again as humans Society we have cities we have towns and also with these they have demands be it for demand for water for industry for drinking but also materials for sort of construction we need trees
We need sediments so I think on the work the causalities for cities that we need to survive that plays out across our basins and the cause realities this ripple effect actually undermines be it the trees the ability for for my my uh my studies being groundwater I think
That infiltrations to be able to get that functioning system because the end of the day in river systems when there is no rain there is still water in the river where does that come from it’s groundwater um so it’s that interconnectedness and into the relationships that I think we
Have to be able to go back in the conversation on politicians have to get that linkage to politicians like look any activity we do it has a ripple effect and I think Dr Ronaldo you actually mentioned I think two days ago we each have a personal connection to water and
The reason that we are in this business has got here um is that linkage to water so from a politician’s perspective or individuals here in this room how do we what is our story with water and how we relate to it and how we value it not financially
But culturally spiritually Etc but I again coming back to Venice and your story of how you got into Auto is for me very touchy thank you that’s that’s absolutely true because I mean we all have our personal relationship with water as I said I’m I was born in
Finland the the land of the thousand lakes I mean the water is it is everywhere and here we were in Stockholm right next door to us is the Sweetwater Lake Maryland so water affects all of us all of our lives now um Philip could you also tell us a little
Bit about we’re all here courtesy of the Stockholm International Water Institute where where the field work that seaweed does so I think for us at Sea we we definitely Focus I think Karen has said it very well over the last few days we focus in the area of governance we have
These beautiful catchments but through um our very nature as humans I think we put up boundaries we put boundaries of politically boundaries we put up roadways we put up pipelines um yeah but in doing so what we create is we create barriers even fence lines between properties and be it Farm types
You see this for Mario photography just the way a country manages its water on one side you have a very desolate environment on the other side it could be very green but just the way they look at water and the way they use water so
For us at seawe it’s the way that we govern our water is extremely important to us is that relationship to the politics of who gets what what water when and where and that’s a very complex because it comes back to like say in between two countries there’s history there’s
Politics different values and to navigate that we have to have a dialogue and have to have a cooperation if we don’t cooperate with I think was mentioned earlier with the speed the changes happening we’re in a very difficult position I think as Society so for us as in the
Space of where it’s how do we govern it and how do we work together to get what we need again we being also the environment the environment is a very critical player in this because we need that environment to be able to provide the water
And to retain the water that we need for the long term now back to you Stuart you have uh said that we cannot have any more mistreating of rivers because they are the lifeblood of societies economies and ecosystems we have to stop being River blind yeah that
Was I was militant when I wrote that blog I think um yeah I mean I think that’s I think it’s an easy thing to say it’s a difficult thing to do for the Governor’s reasons that Philip has mentioned I think the the role that we’re trying to play though is is centrally remind
People the the key function of river systems in our economies in our lives I think the restoration agenda is picking up on water I think the nature-based solutions agenda is picking up on adaptation I think the resilience agenda all of these things lend themselves to us thinking about how we can build back
Better how we can restore our ecosystems how we can reconnect and then show the natural Capital value benefits to society and others that’s very much what I see a role to do hmm and they are one of the important things in in the um the reason why there is you are the
Laureate I think is the your uh theory of rivers as ecological corridors and you have already touched upon that but let’s go back there for five years what’s happening now is the way you rethink the certain certain certain work of man made on river systems it’s uh
It’s very worthwhile it’s worth taking a look but I I think you have to look Beyond looking Beyond it means that we have to look at the landscape and the invisible structures that we’re facing Valencia the traditional the places the political and the source organization whatever you have it it means that we
Should look at ecological corridors and that nature something which we are not foreign to that in a sense it’s a concept which in The Prophet by geographical sense was invented by a a German uh the German geographer but actually was a Friedrich Hudson it’s called the lebensaround but he’s essentially what
You’re looking in is something which the uh the natural landscape is a comprehends the work of man and the built environment so we shouldn’t look necessarily but the key point we have is that the uh the landscape nature is enriched by the work of many many a case
The only thing is we have to control it in a sense and not necessarily what the work does the work of the of that so that is the next step in fact so we build the international environment coexisting of course our biophilia is implanted in implanted in fact rooted in effect for
Nine tenths of our history we’ve been hunter-gatherers so biophilia and the love of nature untouched is very much in in imprinted in US yeah so looking forward I think because as a wide margin in which we can do well and it says here I mean monsters that have been generated
By predecessors of ours have to be devoted militant right indeed we are ready to invite our final guest up on stage thank you thank you Philippines thank you so much and the guest in question is the current chair of the scientific program Committee of the world water week he was
Also the recipient of the Stockholm water prize in 1995 as chief executive of Water Aid Mr John Lane welcome back thank you so much congratulations to you thank you and John is sporting a vintage Stockholm Water Festival Thai I am I am there are not many of these left
No it’s a collector’s item for sure because for those of you who don’t know uh the Water prize began as part of the Stockholm Water Festival that proceeds part of the proceeds uh went to the price the festival didn’t live that long but here we are 33 years later with the
Price still going strong uh now John you have a perfect perspective as both Laureate and uh with the world water week tell us about the development of both of these the Stockholm water price and the world water week in Stockholm yeah thanks very much the I see the Stockholm water
Prizes being immensely important first of all if you look externally you know the award of a prize comes out once a year it’s being made in Stockholm it’s under the pattern patronage of his majesty the king it’s recognizing a person or organization that’s very special in a particular topic
That whole process gives that topic worldwide attention so the Stockholm water prize is really raising the profile of water externally if we look internally within the world of water the the peer review process and we’ve heard about it earlier in this session it is so important because not
Only is it you know it’s a great honor to the recipient but also that that Mutual recognition it reinforces our sense of togetherness as as water people and I find that a really important feature of it the the prize itself you know I see it
Really as as one part of a of a broader system because we also have the Stockholm Junior water prize we have World water week itself which as you say has evolved uh evolved over the years we have the patronage of the head of state and the royal family we’ve had
Fantastically consistent support from Swedish politicians both at the national and at the city level for decades and you you put all those together and you find this is a real focal point for the whole world of water you know this is a place where water people come to meet
Year after year decade after decade and and the the benefit of that it’s not a superficial thing about seeing your friends and enjoying being here it’s a profound it’s a profound impact on the way that all of us work you look at Water Aid uh as you say water Aid was
The was the Laureate in 1995. the organization benefited enormously from winning the prize because the publicity not only to Water Aid as an organization but to the subject of drinking water and sanitation for poor people in developing countries that was very important but also it was
The first time that water Aid Water Aid colleagues were able to to really get to grips with the much broader range of other water-related issues which have then been able to shape the work of the organization coming forward and that applies to to every individual and every organization that come here but what
About uh as you said I mean a lot of the bright minds of the water world are gathered here but what about the fact that we still I mean all over the world we seem to keep taking water for granted what can be done no absolutely uh I mean again I think the
Prize has a useful role here because the award at the prize brings the world attention to some particular important topic Andrea’s work is is a case in point we’ve heard all about it and it’s absolutely vital for the for the future understanding of of water and and of uh
Of all these areas that you’ve been talking about I think also internally um the more that we can we can work together ourselves as water professionals and leaders in the sector it gives us an extra strength with which we can then offer water to other people
To help them to solve their problems so that as you say we’re we’re facing a lot of problems in water but it’s not going to work if we hold our hands out and say look please give us money we’re important our subject is important yeah that doesn’t work
Instead the way that we’re thinking now and this is the basis on which we’re working now here at World water week is to say here we’re offering you uh global leaders politicians leaders of business and Society water and Water Management as a tool that will help you to achieve
Your aims but do the global leaders understand the importance of this I’m a bit worried well of course we would say they don’t understand is enough but that’s probably our fault isn’t it um yes definitely people are really beginning to to Cotton onto this I I’m seeing now compared to three decades ago
So much more understanding and more knowledge about water related uh activities and problems from world leaders so I’m optimistic of that we are communicating better than before and that we should continue to do so with extra Vigor in the future another thing that is quite worrying is is all over
The world the equal access to water which we would like there to be but that is not the case this could be a you know a possible cause of major conflicts I mean it already is but it could get worse it absolutely um there are two schools of thought on
This uh Packer that there are there are there are gloomy people uh of whom there have been a few over the years and they’ve Spoken Here in Stockholm who’ve said oh you know everything’s bad uh we’re fighting with our neighbors about water water is a source of conflict uh
And then there are the more positive-minded people the militant people who point out that actually there are many more examples around the world of places where neighbors working together on water um have enabled to set aside their other differences there may be political differences or ethnic differences and I
Don’t just mean neighboring countries but neighboring communities neighboring nationalities and by working together in water they have then found that sort of common ability as human beings to be together and to improve all of their lives together now of course we hope that there are many more World water weeks to come in
The future and and the water genius is getting together and providing the the world with Solutions what can you tell us about uh I don’t know next year or future world water weeks I I can tell you three things about the theme for next year’s World water okay
The first one and it relates to a point you were making uh earlier in the discussion about politicians and a point you just asked me is that we we know that world water week has evolved from being just a just a meeting of water people to being a meeting which is about
Water but for all people we are selecting themes that will that will offer water uh to help other people to address their own problems and that’s that’s the first point the second point is that on our committee we’re responding to a strategic decision made by siwi at the highest leadership level
Which is to place World water week as a strong component of the follow-up process to the U.N conference on water in in New York in March and so uh for next year and in fact for several years to come we will be offering a world water week as a place where people can
Come to talk about the commitments they made at that conference and I think most importantly for them to learn about how to achieve those commitments they’ve made in a in a wide range of different topics that’s the second thing you probably want to know the third thing
Don’t keep me waiting that’s the most important thing the third and most important thing is that Karen and I will be revealing the topic tomorrow at four o’clock at four o’clock in the afternoon on this stage in the what’s next plenary ah okay we’ll all be here then listening
To you now uh Andrea this is not your first visit at the uh stock of world world water week what about the networking uh potential in a gathering like this well it’s formidable actually and they they I mean the kind of interaction which you can have relaxed and so many interesting activities but
Junior or the prize which is really a marvelous thing and the peak of the event it’s it’s uh the most important in fact things about it about the comment that or what you mean sister unfortunately um we’ll have in fact politicians pay more and more attention because of an
Increased frequency of uh events that are generated by climate change of course so we’re helping that fueled by the attention of the water we only grow if the politicians know what’s good for them they would listen to you constantly not just during you’ll be tired of
Talking to them but if if we to to wrap this up if we go back to where I started this I wanted this this one and a half hours to be about how your work and and the world water weekend and everything that happens how it affects our daily
Lives uh could you give some examples of you know World water weekend and then really bringing something practical to people who take uh part of what has been done and talked about well let me give the example of Water Aid the the Laureate in in 1995. you know I was just
The lucky person who who came here to accept the prize on behalf of the organization but the the anecdote that I want to give that illustrates that was that until that moment Water Aid had been exclusively concentrating on on carrying out field projects in water and sanitation but the the money that was
Part of the prize was allocated by the Board of Trustees specifically to employ that the first staff member who was going to be working on advocacy the first militant if you like and from that directly originating from the prize here in 1995 has grown all of the really powerful and large-scale advocacy and
Policy work that water Aid carries out and that I am convinced has helped many more million people around the world to have safe water and sanitation than the actual Project work that water AIDS Partners carry out and and all of that is thanks to World water week and seaweed very good
Thank you John and and Andrea this evening you will receive the actual prize from the hands of his majesty the king so I will see you there and I’m very grateful that we’ve seen you and you’ve listened to us for this hour and a half both here at Stockholm Waterfront
And online and now remember to nominate for the Stockholm water price 2024. thank you for joining us thank you Andrea thank you so much foreign