Currently more than 900 million people worldwide lack access to clean drinking water and over 2 billion lack basic sanitation. Water demand is increasing at a rate faster than population growth, and the United Nations estimates that in 2025 an estimated 5 billion of the world’s projected 8 billion people will live in areas where water is scarce. Increasing populations, expanding food production and industrialisation, and high living standards will continue to drive up demand for water over the course of this century; all while freshwater overuse and increasing rates of pollution are threatening existing water quality and availability. This situation is likely to worsen under a changing global climate system that will see increasing incidences of droughts, extreme daily temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns across the globe.

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Developing regions like the Caribbean are likely to be disproportionately impacted given their degree of exposure and sensitivity to climatic shocks and underlying challenges in the management, storage, and delivery of existing freshwater resources. Recurring droughts and hurricanes are already exacerbating water scarcity across the region, posing significant threats to human health and well-being and the productivity of key sectors such as tourism and agriculture. Many regional water utilities suffer from aging equipment and water supply infrastructure, high rates of non-revenue water, limited financial resources, and high energy and operating costs.

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Addressing existing issues confronting the regional water sector, such as challenges regarding the storage, treatment, and distribution of available water resources, is therefore key to adapting the Caribbean to future climate changes, and in achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 on Water and several other related SDGs. Water is also critical for successful climate change mitigation given its importance to energy security. Conservation is thus an extremely important priority action area given the ongoing and impending threats posed to freshwater resources from human activities and environmental change. Growing demands for water are compounded by changes in natural systems' functions increasingly caused by changes in land use transitions, climate-induced stresses and ecological degradation. There is an urgent need to identify opportunities for advancing conservation efforts in the regional water sector that can offer sustainable solutions that are culturally relevant, affordable, and accessible. Integrally tied to this is the need for innovation and new thinking around water conservation, storage, use and management.

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The Caribbean Science Symposium on Water (CSSW) aligns well and supports several recent and ongoing regional initiatives and programmes. Whilst discussions around water conservation and wastewater management and reuse are not new to the Caribbean, there is a noticeable gap between research and implementation in these areas, and their translation to the policy domain, and use and relevance in informing evidence-based decision-making. This second CSSW provides an opportunity to bridge that gap by bringing the two sides together. The Symposium will bring together representatives from the research, development, economic, legislative and policy communities to share and discuss ideas on ongoing scientific studies, initiatives, innovations, and best practices related to enhancing water conservation and management in the Caribbean.

The CSSW seeks to attract high-quality scientific, research, technical and exploratory papers that can offer useful insights on key challenges impacting the access, management, utilisation, and sustainability of water resources across the region and potential solutions. A key feature will be bringing Science and Policy together, to interrogate science outputs from a policy perspective to enhance policy dialogue across the region particularly around IWRM. Without sound science, evidence-based policy formulation cannot occur and places the economies of the region at greater risk of maladaptation and mismanagement of already scarce resources. The Symposium is designed not only to be an opportunity to share research outputs but importantly, provide interactive opportunities to bridge the gap between science outputs and policy formulation, and be an arena for exploring the practical and policy implications of these outputs.

The 2023 CSSW takes place virtually on March 21st and 22nd, 2023 under the theme of the "Conservation and Innovation: Changing the Regional Water Paradigm.” The biennial event is one of the first of its kind for the Caribbean and aims to feed into several regional and global activities in 2023 of importance to the Caribbean Community, including the 28th session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP 28). The initiative will be a signature event for the Global Water Partnership-Caribbean (GWP-C) and is expected to provide a dynamic platform to actively engage scientists, policy makers, youth, and other stakeholder groups on water-related issues.

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