CWN’s Nicola Crawhall and other Board members of the Global Water Research Coalition met during the week of March 17-22 in Cape Town, South Africa. The meeting was hosted by Jennifer Molwanta, CEO of the Water Research Commission (WRC) of South Africa, and was held in parallel with the International Water Association’s global conference on water reuse.
At the meeting, members welcomed new GWRC Chair, Marielle van der Zowen, CEO of KWR Water Research Institute in the Netherlands. They shared an enormous thank you to Peter Grevatt, CEO of the Water Research Foundation (United States), who is the outgoing Chair.
The meeting focused on strategic planning and establishing GWRC’s top priorities. The five issues that rose to the top included:
- Water quality and contaminants of concern such as PFAS
- Biosolids management, including what the presence of microplastics and PFAS means for spreading biosolids on agricultural land
- GHG mitigation and measurement of fugitive emissions
- Molecular level water monitoring methods and implications for toxicology and chemical assessment
- Resilient infrastructure
One of the first actions that has come out of this strategic planning exercise is the creation of a GWRC biosolids management working group. This will be chaired by Dutch research centre STOWA and Singapore PUB. CWN will participate on this working group and share international knowledge with our Municipal Water Consortium members.
GWRC members were also treated to a full day of excellent presentations by WRC staff regarding Cape Town’s water strategy, Our Shared Water Future, which was developed in response to the water crisis of 2018. Since then, Cape Town has made great strides in securing supply, capturing rainwater and expanding water reuse.