• Challenges for global water quality monitoring and assessment in the context of the new Sustainable Development Goal for Water, SDG 6 Deborah Chapman (Director UNEP GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre, Environmental Research Institute, Lee Road, Cork)

1. Challenges for global water quality
monitoring and assessment in the context of
the new Sustainable Development Goal for
Water, SDG 6
Deborah Chapman,
UN Environment GEMS/Water Capacity Development Centre,
University College Cork, Ireland

2. The GEMS/Water programme
The Global Environment
Monitoring System for Water
GEMS/Water was established in
1978 with the purpose of generating
a database of global water quality
data for global and regional
assessments
2014 United Nations Environment
Assembly (UNEA) Resolution 1/9
gave a mandate for UN
Environment to revitalize the
programme with support from the
Governments of Germany and
Ireland

3. The GEMS/Water programme: Data Centre
Data Centre
• Creation of a more user friendly
data collection and analysis
system
• Collection of new water quality
data
• Providing data for global reports
• Exploring new sources of water
quality data
GEMS/Water promotes and supports water quality monitoring and assessment

4. Challenge: Data availability for global and regional assessments
UNEP-Region: Africa
Asia and the
Pacific
Europe
Latin America
and the
Caribbean
North America West Asia Totals
# participating Countries 17 24 23 13 2 4 83
# Stations 279 629 373 1704 632 23 3640
# Values 305221 1273194 1031534 390885 347871 1055 3349760

5. Capacity Development Centre
Training in the collection of high
quality, reliable water quality
data that can be used for
national, regional and global
assessments
Advice and assistance with
monitoring programme design
and network development
GEMS/Water promotes and supports water quality monitoring and assessment
The GEMS/Water programme: Capacity Development Centre

6. The United Nations General
Assembly approved the
Agenda 2030 for
Sustainable Development
in September 2015
Goal 6: Ensure availability
and sustainable
management of water and
sanitation for all
17 Goals - 169 Targets - 230 Indicators
Global water quality: moving towards sustainability

7. SDG 6 is divided into six targets and eleven indicators
6.6
Eco-
systems
6.1
Drinking
water
6.5
Water
manage-
ment
6.2
Sanitation
and
hygiene
6.3
Waste-
water and
water
quality6.4
Water use
and
scarcity
6.a and 6.b
Cooperation
and
participation
6.1.1
6.2.1
6.a.1
6.3.1
6.3.2
6.4.16.4.2
6.5.1
6.5.2
6.6.1
6.b.1
6.1.1 Safely managed drinking water services
6.2.1 Safely managed sanitation and hygiene
services
6.3.1 Wastewater safely treated
6.3.2 Good ambient water quality
6.4.1 Water use efficiency
6.4.2 Level of water stress
6.5.1 Integrated water resources management
6.5.2 Transboundary basin area with water
cooperation
6.6.1 Water-related ecosystems
6.a.1 Water- and sanitation-related official
development assistance that is part of a
government coordinated spending plan
6.b.1 Participation of local communities in water
and sanitation management

8. Target 6.3: Indicator 6.3.2 Good ambient water quality
6.3.1
6.3.2
6.3
Waste-
water and
water
quality
Target 6.3 links pollution, wastewater
and water quality
“By 2030, improve water quality by
reducing pollution, eliminating
dumping and minimizing release of
hazardous chemicals and materials,
halving the proportion of untreated
wastewater and substantially
increasing recycling and safe reuse
globally”

9. SDG Indicator 6.3.2 Good ambient water quality
Ambient waters are rivers, lakes, reservoirs and
groundwaters
Good ambient water quality does not damage
ecosystem function or present a risk to human health.
• It should not be severely impacted by human
activities
• It should support a balanced ecosystem, including
fisheries
• It should not present a risk to human health when
used untreated for activities such as water contact
recreational activities

10. Helping countries towards sustainable management of water and wastewater
UN Water: Integrated Monitoring
Initiative (GEMI)
1. Develop methodologies and tools to
monitor SDG 6 global indicators
2. Raise awareness at national and
global levels about SDG 6
monitoring
3. Enhance country capacity in
monitoring (technical and
institutional)
4. Compile country data and report on
global progress towards SDG 6

11. Challenges to monitoring water quality at global scale
• Global comparability
• Feasibility for countries with limited
financial and technical resources
• Need to detect a range of impacts
on water quality
• Sensitive enough to highlight
trends
• Be useful for countries for their own
water management activities

12. Development of indicator 6.3.2
2014-15
• Water quality index developed by GEMS/Water in
2007 modified for global use
2016
• Index was tested in 2016 in five countries but only
two (Uganda and Senegal) attempted to implement
the methodology
2017
• Feedback and review from workshops and
individual comments resulted in a simplified index
for implementation and baseline data collection

13. Indicator 6.3.2 Step by step methodology for assessing ambient water quality
“Good quality” is assessed in relation to target
values for easy to measure physico-chemical
parameters
Countries use or set their own target values for
each parameter
For baseline global reporting in 2017, five water
quality parameters (DO, EC, N, P, pH) have been
recommended (three for groundwater: pH,
nitrate, EC)
Monitoring data for selected parameters at each
station on a water body are compared with target
values to determine percentage compliance for
each water body. Good water quality is
represented by 80% compliance or more. Indicator is reported as percentage of water bodies at
national level that reach good water quality

14. Baseline data collection: challenges experienced to date
Difficulties with the
methodology:
• No target values
• Lack of data for one or
more parameters
Inadequate monitoring
networks:
• Spatial coverage
• Frequency of
measurements
• Capacity and resource
issues
Baseline data report due early 2018

15. Thank you for listening
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