It's always invisible, sometimes difficult to access and an increasingly strained resource that 2.5 billion humans depend upon for survival: groundwater is the hot topic of World Water Day 2022. IAWD joins the celebrations in the spirit of the renewed Memorandum of Understanding with the International Water Association.

World Water Day, held on 22 March every year since 1993, celebrates the value of water and raises awareness of the necessity to protect this vital resource at a time when 2 billion people are without access to safe water.

This year, World Water Day is themed "Groundwater - Making the Invisible Visible" and the focus of awareness is on the importance of protecting groundwater from depletion and pollution.

Groundwater is always out of sight, and therefore much too often out of mind. Yet it provides half of all drinking water, more than 40% of irrigation water, and a third of the industrial sector’s water consumption on planet Earth. Around the world, some 2.5 billion people depend solely on it to satisfy their daily drinking and other domestic water needs. Demand for groundwater is on a steady rise, driven by population growth and changes in global consumption patterns. Irrigated agriculture is a big driver of groundwater depletion. Ever-deeper boreholes and powerful pumps put strains on groundwater reserves that are also threatened by the effects of climate change and harmful influences on quality.

Groundwater governance addresses the multiple concerns and challenges that face the resource and its users, involving processes and people. It provides mechanisms and frameworks for decision-making, and reaches out to actors engaged in, and/or affected by, the outcome of the decisions. This is what World Water Day 2022 is about.

Our community joins the celebrations with a recently renewed Memorandum of Understanding between the IAWD and the International Water Association (IWA). The IAWD had the honour to welcome IWA President Tom Mollenkopf to the signing ceremony in Vienna.

The renewed memorandum includes a strong focus on future IAWD-IWA cooperation in establishing national Young Water Professionals chapters and staging events for this growing programme. It also stipulates future joint activities in the field of knowledge management.

The renewed Memorandum of Understanding opens another chapter in long, fruitful relations: IAWD President Walter Kling and IAWD's member representative Teodor Popa are corrently members of the IWA Board, and Walter Kling has recently been appointed Chairman of the IWA Strategic Council.

We recommend the World Water Day website for information and inspiration and wish a happy World Water Day 2022!