1,3,4,5,6,10,11,12- 1Division of Environment and Natural Resources, Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO), Aas, Norway (mojtaba.shafiei@nibio.no)
- 2Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands
- 3Department of Earth Sciences, University College London
- 4School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Birmingham, UK
- 5International Centre for Water Resources and Global Change (ICWRGC), Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG), Koblenz, Germany
- 6Faculty of Civil and Geodetic Engineering & UNESCO Chair on Water-Related Disaster Risk Reduction, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
- 7Canada Research Chair in Statistical Hydro-Climatology, National Institute for Scientific Research, Quebec, Canada
- 8Soil Conservation and Watershed Management Research Department, Zanjan Agricultural and Natural Resources Research and Education Center, AREEO, Zanjan, Iran
- 9Department of Water Engineering and Management, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran
- 10Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, United Kingdom
- 11Department Water Management, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands
- 12Department for Innovation in Biological, Agro-Food and Forest systems (DIBAF), Tuscia University, Italy
Water plays a central connecting role within the climate system, linking meteorological, hydrological, and earth system processes with societal dimensions such as water resource demands and risks associated with pollution, droughts, and floods. Global water challenges are addressed through multiple international agendas related to sustainable development, climate change, biodiversity, and water security. While these agendas share broadly aligned objectives, they differ in scope, scale, and modes of operationalization. Together, they shape how scientific knowledge is mobilized, policies are formulated, and actions are implemented. As the 2030 Agenda approaches its conclusion, there is a growing need to review and map global water agendas in order to better understand their interactions and support more coherent responses to complex water challenges.
Rather than viewing global water agendas as parallel and independent efforts, they can be understood as interconnected learning pathways through which shared objectives, knowledge, and practical experience evolve over time. From this perspective, synergies emerge across these learning pathways through reflection, coordination, and exchange between science, policy, and practice. Clarifying how such synergies can be recognized, supported, and strengthened is therefore essential for advancing more integrated and impactful responses to global water challenges.
The Strategic UN Synergy Working Group (SUN) operates within the IAHS HELPING Science for Solutions Decade (2023–2032) and aims to strengthen the contribution of hydrological science to international policy processes and practical implementation programmes. Guided by the HELPING paradigm, SUN facilitates bottom-up engagement, open science, and co-creation principles to support learning across scales and the translation of hydrological knowledge into policy and action.
This contribution introduces the vision, structure, and core activities of the SUN Working Group, with a focus on understanding global water agendas and supporting synergies through a science–policy–practice approach. SUN builds on the understanding of global water agendas as interconnected learning pathways, and we will illustrate how coordinated learning pathways can help advance more coherent, integrated, and future-oriented global water agenda.
How to cite: Shafiei, M., Gharesifard, M., Thomas, B., Islam, N., Dietrich, S., Mikoš, M., Ouarda, T., Abdollahi, Z., Mirhashemi Dehkordi, S. S., Mosaffa, H., Bogaard, T., and Grimaldi, S.: Charting Synergies in Global Water Agendas: A Strategic Science–Policy–Practice Approach, EGU General Assembly 2026, Vienna, Austria, 3–8 May 2026, EGU26-18624, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu26-18624, 2026.
