Technical INSTO Webinar on: Water and Waste Water Management

• All Regions
• 22 Jun 21

Tuesday, June 22, 2021 | 12 pm CEST /Zoom Session

Water is a key resource in tourism and services to tourists are heavily dependent on it. Water can become a constraint to sustainable development, a limit on tourist activities and an issue of conflict with local residents over allocation and pricing, in particular when water is a scarce resource. While new innovative water supplies can be difficult to obtain and costly (e.g. import, desalinization), conservation is one means to reduce or mitigate demand (e.g. recycling waste or grey water).

For measuring water availability and water conservation a variety of indicators exist, ranging, inter alia, from water use per capita per tourist to water saving and recycled waste and grey water, as well as pricing. In addition to these aspects, measuring the quality of drinking water and sea water are also aspects of interest for tourism and require relevant attention by destinations.

As with water also the management of waste water (sewage) is a key concern for tourism and requires relevant monitoring efforts. If not properly managed it can lead through pollution to contamination of its key resources -beaches, lakes, rivers- and can harm wildlife and natural resources and subsequently the destination. Indicators in this area range, among others, from measuring the percentage of waste water receiving treatment to the number of establishments participating in water conservation programmes.

Both monitoring areas- water and waste water management- keep being a major challenge for destinations.

The second webinar discussed experiences and lessons learned by some Members of the UNWTO International Network of Sustainable Tourism Observatories (INSTO) in the field of monitoring water and waste water management, both mandatory issue areas for them.

Organized by the Sustainable Development of Tourism Department of the UNWTO. 

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