With World Water Week 2020 having been cancelled due to the global pandemic, this year’s event was an opportunity to bring two influential laureates together for a joint online award ceremony, and an engaging and earnest discussion on why there is no time to spare when tackling the global water crisis.
“I am very pleased to receive the Stockholm Water Prize as it gives me this opportunity to speak about the importance of protecting groundwater. The global water crisis is starting to get more attention, but groundwater is often forgotten, despite making up 99 per cent of the planet’s liquid freshwater. Many people still perceive groundwater as pristine when in fact it is threatened by human activity,” said Dr Cherry.
During the ceremony, the laureates spoke about how the water crisis is both connected to, and separated from, the climate crisis. They said that there is no doubt that the world’s water situation is closely linked to the changing climate, but, as Dr Cherry pointed out, the global water crisis is also an independent problem in the sense that it would have been there for us to tackle even without the climate change.
