About WaSS2026
This is still a tentative version under editing.
Welcome to WaSS2026, the International Conference on Water Security and Sustainability. This series event is organised every three years in Nanjing, China, which is home to some of world’s most devoted institutions for water research and education. Nanjing also sits at the historical and contemporary heart of China’s water civilisation, shaped for centuries by flood control, river engineering, and basin governance of major Chinese rivers.
Water has come to the spotlight under the ongoing climate crisis and global changes. After almost half a century of silence at the highest level, the 2023 UN Water Conference refocused global attention on water, giving birth to the Water Action Agenda (WAA), a pivotal initiative to advance the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 and other water-sanitation targets. The first-ever UN System-wide Strategy for Water and Sanitation marks a new global consensus in the essential role of water in addressing poverty, food insecurity, climate change, inequality, disease, and biodiversity loss. This is well demonstrated as water security has formally integrated into the Belém Adaptation Indicators, walking from sidelines to the center of climate negotiations. These developments reflect a broader recognition that failure to address water security will systematically undermine climate action and wider sustainable development objectives. These global shifts resonate strongly in China, where rapid urbanisation, uneven water endowments, intensifying climate extremes, and large river basins have made water security a defining challenge of development, governance, and ecological transition.
In spite of the promising momentum, the implementation gap remains massively structural, and in some cases, widening. Half of the world’s population now live under high water-stress for at least one month per year, and that proportion is expected to rise to 60% by 2050. The latest report from the Global Commission on the Economics of Water concludes that ‘decades of collective mismanagement and undervaluation of water’ are to blame. However, tracking of WAA commitments indicates that most of them remain at ‘nascent or intermediate stages of implementation’. SDG 6 monitoring shows that progress is falling short to meet the 2030 targets, with many indicators lagging behind. Financial constraints, technical and knowledge gaps, and weak governance institutions are major set backs in translating the momentum into meaningful outcomes. At regional or local scale, the least developed countries and most vulnerable communities are expected to be impacted disproportionally. However, transboundary cooperation over shared river basins and aquifers have mostly stagnated since 2020. As one of the countries confronting some of the most complex and large-scale water challenges, China provides a critical context for scientific reflection on the limits, risks, and consequences of different water management pathways.
Given the development, we believe scientists and researchers in the water sector around the world have a major role to play as we approach the last quarter of the international decade of water action. This becomes particularly relevant as world’s leaders are set to gather again in the United Arab Emirates in December 2026 for water. Therefore, we are cordially inviting water scientists and researchers around the world to WaSS2026 for sharing of latest findings in water research, and discussion on solutions to informing global policy-making with science. WaSS2026 seeks to foster dialogue between Chinese and international scholars, bridging diverse research traditions, empirical contexts, and governance experiences in pursuit of more resilient and equitable water futures.
In 2015, 2017, 2021 and 2023, we have met in Nanjing and Changzhou four times under the over-arching theme of water security and sustainability. In October 2026, we look forward to seeing you again in Nanjing, where the ancient Qinhuai River of romance meets the mighty Yangtze.