19 May 2013: The International Hydrological Programme (IHP) of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the UN World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) jointly organized a meeting to launch the Trans-boundary Water Assessment Programme (TWAP), aimed to conduct a global assessment of the status of transboundary water systems.

TWAP responds to the lack of systematic and scientifically-robust methodology to assess the changing conditions of transboundary water systems that result from human activities, as well as natural and climate-related events. It aims to fill this gap by developing transboundary waters assessment methodologies for the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) in setting priorities and catalyze a partnership for conducting such a global assessment for each of the five categories of transboundary water systems, namely transboundary groundwater, transboundary lakes/reservoirs, transboundary river basins, Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs), and open ocean areas.

The meeting was hosted at the UNESCO Programme Office for Global Water Assessment in Perugia, and coincided with the opening ceremony of the second edition of the Umbria Water Festival, a week-long series of events related to water in the Region of Umbria, Italy.

TWAP partners include: the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Division of Early Warning and Assessment (DEWA) in partnership with the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO; UNESCO-IHP; the UNEP Collaborating Centre on Water and Environment (UCC-Water); the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI); the UN International Groundwater Resources Assessment Centre (IGRAC); Finland; IUCN; and UNEP GRID-Arendal. [Umbria Water Festival Website] [TWAP Website] [WWAP Website]