Water storage and hydropower as drivers for sustainable development

However, they have sometimes primarily served specific sectors (e.g. industry) and/or delivered services largely to urban centers while negative aspects such as relocation, loss of land, reduced environmental flow etc. were mainly borne by people in regions local to the reservoir or even in another downstream country. In addition, management schemes can sometimes follow sectoral needs without considering other water uses. In order to become drivers of truly sustainable development, reservoirs need to be developed and managed by adopting a nexus approach. This implies considering essential ecosystem services and the close inter-linkage of water, energy and food and involving all respective actors. Developed in this way, reservoirs may deliver hydropower for sustainable energy (considering also energy storage for integration with other renewables), while at the same time serving the needs for the secure supply of water for human consumption, agriculture, industry, navigation and the environment and managing floods and droughts. The challenge still is to develop and adopt integrated management and governance strategies for water storage infrastructure operation and maintenance. How to address this challenge will be a major theme of the seminar. 14:00 Welcome by Moderator 14:05 Joakim Harlin, UNDP: Importance of water infrastructure for SDGs 14:15 Tracy Lane, IHA: The role of hydropower for sustainable development 14:25 Reza Ardakanian, UNU-FLORES: Multiple-purpose reservoirs as showcase of the Water - Energy - Food nexus: opportunities for achieving SDGs 14:35 Joakim Harlin, UNDP: Introduction of panelists 14:40 Panel discussion, moderated by Joakim Harlin Panelists: Tracy Lane, Director, Hydropower Development, International Hydropower Association Reza Ardakanian, Director, United Nations University Institute for integrated Management of Material Fluxes and of Resources, UNU-FLORES William Rex, Global Lead for Hydropower and Dams in the World Bank Zebediah Phiri, Executive Secretary of the Zambezi Watercourse Commission (ZAMCOM) Lin Chuxue, China Three Gorges Corporation Li Lifeng, Freshwater Director, WWF 15: 25 Wrap up and closing