World Water Monitoring Day (31/08/07)

Greetings everyone:

On the 18th September, tens of thousands of people, schoolchildren and adults, will work together to monitor the water quality in lakes and rivers in their immediate environment as part of the World Water Monitoring Day campaign.

Below is a message from Darren Saywell from the International Water Association, one of the campaign partner organisations. The links in the message will give you more information and contact people if you want to get involved in this growing and successful campaign.

With best regards, Sandra Hails, Ramsar Secretariat
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On September 18th 2007, tens of thousands of people in an anticipated 50 countries will celebrate World Water Monitoring Day (WWMD). The event, which is organized jointly by the Water Environment Federation (www.wef.org) and the International Water Association (www.iwahq.org) aims to bring public attention to the role that the world's citizens must play in ensuring a sustainable supply of clean, usable water in each and every country. Participants will test the quality of rivers, lakes and other water bodies using a simple monitoring kit. All the water quality data from around the world is collected in the WWMD database, which provides a unique snapshot of the state of the world's water. You can take part by registering one or more monitoring sites in your area on the World Water Monitoring Day web site:

www.worldwatermonitoringday.org.

In 2006, 28,150 participants tested water quality at 3,991 sites in 39 different countries. These numbers are roughly double what they were on the first annual WWMD in 2003. Last year, many on this list actively supported the initiative, and this message is a request for your continued support in 2007.

This year, we would like to increase our engagement with you to reach more monitoring sites and involve more participants. Please indicate:

As an additional request, I would be grateful if you could pass this message on to 1 other colleague locally who might be able to participate and join in WWMD.

IWA has a limited number of free water monitoring kits available for participants in low income countries. If you would like more information about World Water Monitoring Day, or if you are interested in receiving free monitoring kits for WWMD activities in your country, please email the above mentioned information to Darren.saywell@iwahq.org.uk

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Dr. Darren Saywell,
Development Director
Direct Line: +44 20 7654 5542
Mobile: +44 7834 126 869
darren.saywell@iwahq.org.uk

International Water Association
Alliance House, 12 Caxton Street
London SW1H 0QS, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7654 5542
Fax: +44 (0)20 7654 5555
http://www.iwahq.org

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