Key Features

Water as a Key to Action on Climate and the SDGs

The International Water Association is convening a High-Level Summit to escalate action. The result will be a powerful message to prompt cities to elevate water as they pursue their ambitions to create smart and secure liveable cities for all – cities that are climate safe and where citizens have access to sustainable water and sanitation services.

The Summit is organised by the International Water Association, Danish Water and Wastewater Association, the Municipality of Copenhagen, P4G and the Confederation of Danish Industry, in cooperation with the Ministry of Environment of Denmark and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark.

Ministers, mayors, politicians and policymakers will be among those participating in the Summit. The number of places will be limited. If you are interested in attending this invitation-only event please >> express your interest here

Presented by The Capital Region of Denmark and ATV Soil and Groundwater

The Groundwater Forum is open for all participants

The Capital Region of Denmark welcomes all groundwater-interested delegates to attend the Groundwater Forum. The Groundwater Forum aims to promote groundwater as a critical resource to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and, critically, safe drinking water for all. The Forum will provide examples from around the globe on the management of groundwater quantity and quality. The Forum will be divided in three sessions on groundwater topics such as management and cooperation around scarce resources and competing interests. Quantifying groundwater sustainability and risk assessment on emerging pollutants will also be discussed.

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The Emerging Water Leaders Forum is an open platform for young and emerging water leaders to work with peers to start planning for the future of the water sector that they will lead.

The topic of this year’s Forum is Challenges in the Water Sector and how to make an impact as Young Water Professional. Participants are invited to discuss and design solutions among their peers to address big challenges. The Forum will be an opportunity to voice your ideas and perspectives as a young water professional and break complex issues down into smaller components. You will practise your problem-solving skills whilst developing answers to the questions posed by senior and experienced professionals.

The Forum for Industrial Water Users was formed to exchange ideas and approaches for how the industry can mitigate and overcome water-related challenges in a sustainable manner. As water is always seen in the local context, the Forum will present different approaches from across the globe. Industrial water users account for around 20% on a global scale, or more than twice the total domestic water use, and in some countries, industry consumption counts for 50%, with considerable local impacts. Core topics to be addressed at the Forum for Industrial Water Users will be:

• Perspectives on Water Stewardship
• Incentivizing Sustainability: From SDGs to Regulation
• Sustainable Tools and Applications, including water efficiency and water reuse.

The participants in the Forum are expected to be Sustainability/EHS responsible from food and other water-intensive industries; Retailers; Consumer organisations; Academics doing research on water administration and technological solutions; NGO’s; Consultants within water management and efficiency; Technology providers within water management and technical solutions.

The ULF will bring together over the course of two days some of the most prominent water utility leaders with the most impactful case studies to share experiences and knowledge. This will involve having open, interactive, and structured dialogue around some of the most critical issues facing utilities. Importantly, this will be structured in a format that will facilitate participation from all attendees.

The sessions will focus on:
– Integrated Urban Water Management and the New Societal Role of Utilities in Creating our Cities of the Future
– Accelerating Adoption of Innovation
– Evolving with Climate Change
– Living in the Digital world

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Inspiring innovators and innovation

The Innovators Platform is a collaborative effort to inspire innovation around water. It is being guided by a steering committee of individuals with a shared passion for innovation and is supported by the International Water Association. The Copenhagen event is being co-developed and facilitated by Water Valley Denmark and is receiving input from Singapore’s PUB.

The Innovators Platform frames innovation in a wide context, looking beyond technologies. It anticipates the broad benefits to society can be realised with innovation ‘through’ water.

The introductory event was held at Singapore International Water Week and led by PUB, focused on the theme of circularity for societal benefits from water. The Danish water sector is aiming to become climate neutral by 2030 and this aim is being blended with the overall circularity of water theme. These ambitions, which are driving change in the Danish sector and reflect growing priorities around the world, underpin the outlook of the Copenhagen event.

In Copenhagen, international participants will explore opportunities arising from water’s potential to be a vehicle for transformation through the adoption of a circular economy water journey for climate change mitigation and adaptation, captured by the question:

What are the opportunities to benefit societies by harnessing water’s potential to bring about circular economy transformations delivering climate change adaptation or mitigation?

Programme Theme: Regulating water services in times of increasing natural, social, and economic uncertainty

The International Water Regulators Forum (IWRF) is the international meeting of the global network of regulators of IWA. It gathers high level representatives of regulatory authorities and officials of agencies with regulatory and supervisory functions over the provision of water, sanitation, and wastewater treatment services.

The IWRF Programme Committee has agreed to address the essence of what current global issues like the pandemic, climate change, social unrest, and political instability mean for the regulation of water supply and sanitation services: increased uncertainty.

The 7th IWRF  will consist of 5 sessions addressing current regulatory challenges and topics of interest to regulators, three sessions will be regulators-only (by invitation), and two sessions will be open to the general audience of the IWA Congress.

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Earth Observation (EO) technologies combined with modeling of highly complex, dynamic systems can provide monitoring and forecasting information on water quality and quantity. This information can guide water professionals in making quick and data-informed decisions, achieve regulatory compliance at low cost, and improve the day-to-day performance of operations. This meeting will explore how EO technology is being applied across the water sector and in the framework of the PrimeWater H2020 project to better manage water quality issues.

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