Stockholm, Sweden – August 25, 2026
As World Water Week gathered policymakers, researchers and practitioners in Stockholm from August 23 to 27, a coalition led by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and UNESCO put circular water management for dryland cities at the center of the agenda on August 25, 2026.
Two linked sessions — UNESCO's Transitioning to Circular Water Management for Climate Resilient Cities and Communities in Drylands and the FAO co-convened Science-based forest and landscape management for safeguarding water — opened the week’s water-food-climate track, arguing that closing the water loop is no longer a technical luxury but a survival strategy for the world's most water-stressed regions.
From Linear to Circular in Drylands
The UNESCO session, held August 25, framed circular water management as a system shift: keep water in use for as long as possible through sequential reuse, recharge and regeneration, rather than the linear pattern of extract-use-discharge.
In dryland cities — where rainfall is erratic, groundwater is declining and demand from agriculture and urban growth competes for the same resource — panelists presented evidence from pilots in the Sahel, the Middle East and Central Asia. Techniques included decentralized wastewater treatment for peri-urban agriculture, Managed Aquifer Recharge using stormwater, and nature-based solutions such as restored wetlands that filter and store runoff.
FAO's contribution linked the urban discussion to landscape hydrology. Its August 24 session on Science-based forest and landscape management for safeguarding water showed how forest and landscape restoration, when hydrology is intentionally integrated into planning, enhances water and food security together. The session on August 25, Monitoring Water Productivity through Remote Sensing — sustainability and scalability, presented results from the WaPOR Phase 2 project now active in 13 countries, demonstrating how open-access satellite data can turn irrigation planning from guesswork into data-driven science.
Why Drylands, Why Now
World Water Week 2026 runs under the theme Water for People and Progress, with water and gender as a cross-cutting focus ahead of the 2026 UN Water Conference Green Water Flagship Initiative.
Drylands cover about 41% of Earth's land surface and are home to more than 2 billion people, many of them smallholder farmers. In these environments, FAO notes, climate change is intensifying water scarcity, trade-offs between food production and nature, and dependence on groundwater that is often mined unsustainably. The global food trade adds pressure: off-season fruits and vegetables are often sourced from water-stressed basins, exporting scarcity through virtual water flows.
"Forest and landscape restoration enhances water and food security, climate resilience and livelihoods when water is intentionally integrated into planning and governance." — FAO World Water Week programme, August 2026
UNESCO's dialogue emphasized equity: marginalized communities in dryland cities often pay the highest price for water, in cost and time, and benefit last from centralized infrastructure. Circular approaches — from household rainwater harvesting to community-managed wetlands — were presented as ways to localize supply, reduce energy for pumping, and create livelihoods for women and youth.
Toolkits on Display
Three practical toolkits drew particular attention:
1. Water Availability and Demand (WAD) Tool — unveiled August 23 in Stockholm. An open-access digital platform that blends satellite data with water accounting to show sufficiency at multiple scales, helping planners decide where irrigation expansion is viable without depleting aquifers.
2. WaPOR (Water Productivity through Open Access of Remotely Sensed Derived Data) — Phase 2 results shared August 25. Capacity development in 13 countries enables ministries and farmer cooperatives to monitor crop water use efficiency and detect over-irrigation in near real time.
3. Green Water Knowledge Agenda — an August 24 working session that maps knowledge gaps on green water (soil moisture held in the landscape) and its role in the wider hydrological cycle, feeding into the UN Water Conference.
Trade-offs and Governance
The session Water for Tomorrow: Shaping Future Agricultural, Food and Trade Systems on August 25 tackled unsustainable off-season sourcing and the need to balance agriculture, water and nature. Speakers noted that climate-driven shifts in rainfall are making historical allocation rules obsolete, and that inclusive water governance — aligning policy, finance and local action — is the limiting factor for scaling circular systems.
FAO's Global Framework on Water Scarcity in Agriculture (WASAG), which presented its 2026–2031 strategy on August 26 with four pillars on policy, research and innovation, capacity building and financing, will put farmers at the centre of actions to build resilient agrifood systems.
Source: FAO at World Water Week 2026 Programme, Stockholm, 23-27 August 2026 (sessions of 23-25 August 2026). UNESCO Event Pages 25 August 2026 — Transitioning to Circular Water Management for Climate Resilient Cities and Communities in Drylands. SIWI World Water Week 2026.
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Institutional Research Desk · Foresight Institute of Research and Translation
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