SIC ICWC SHARES LESSONS OF CENTRAL ASIAN COOPERATION ON WATER QUALITY
On 23 April, an international workshop on increasing capacities to prevent, prepare for and respond to accidental water pollution from tailing facilities was held in Bratislava. The workshop was hosted by Slovakia and organized by UNECE in partnership with the Conventions’ Joint Expert Group on Water and Industrial Accidents.
The workshop included five sessions:
- International and national regulatory frameworks on tailings safety and the prevention of accidental water pollution and their practical application
- Role of transboundary basin organizations in the prevention and
- mitigation of accidental water pollution
- Life cycle, monitoring and controls of Tailings Management Facilities
- (TMFs), including early warning systems
- Discussion on financing of Tailings Management Facilities (TMFs) after closure
- Tailings and water pollution risks, including tools to mitigate them
Director of SIC ICWC Dinara Ziganshina intervened in Session 2 with the report on the issues of water quality addressed by ICWC and by bilateral country groups in the region. She underlined, in particular, that the UNECE projects on water quality and tailings’ impact in the region had formed a good basic platform to advance activities in this area.
In March 2024, to support Uzbekistan, joined recently to the Protocol on Water and Health, a new project “Strengthening action in Uzbekistan on water and sanitation and protection of water resources from accidental pollution in the face of climate change” was launched by UNECE. Among other things, it is planned to support the Joint Uzbek-Kazakh Working Group on environmental protection and water quality in the Syr Darya River Basin by starting working on the Joint Emergency Action Plan for prevention, preparedness and response to industrial/tailing accidents in the basin.
More details are available on the UNECE website
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