Current demand for freshwater from cities, agriculture and industry is already unsustainable in many regions, yet is projected to increase significantly in coming years. Nearly two billion people lack access to clean water for drinking or sanitation, yet many of the rivers and lakes that sustain us are polluted or running dry.
To face this challenge the Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) has been formed to provide a global platform for the development of standards for Water Stewardship that will enable fair and sustainable management of freshwater resources. The International Standard Development Committee (ISDC) from the AWS will form the primary decision-making body and is charged with synthesizing stakeholder input from throughout the world to form the International Water Stewardship Standard to recognize and reward successful water stewards around the world.

The European Water Stewardship (EWS) has been officially recognized as a partner and as the Regional Initiative within the global Water Stewardship movement of the AWS. This strengthens the potential of our European initiative to sustain and to actively shape the global Water Stewardship activities and standards.

It has been the major challenge for EWS to:

•  Integrate in this assessment local characteristics of sustainable water management.
•  Define criteria that are valid for the different sectors but harmonized enough for a common assessment of water stewardship of all sectors within one watershed.
•  Harmonize the outcome of the pilot studies and to bring them into implementation.

Other challenges for EWS are to:

•  Harmonize and structure this process with the global Water Stewardship initiative (AWS and WWF Water Roundtable).
•  Define and keep the lead for the European Water Stewardship initiative.

A growing partnership

The global platform is growing and establishes a cooperative relationship between the current partners of the AWS:

• The Nature Conservancy (TNC).
• World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
• Water Stewardship Australia (WSA).
• Pacific Institute (PI).
• Water Witness International (WWI).
• Water Environment Federation (WEF).
• International Water Management Institute (IWMI).
• The CEO Water Mandate.
• Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).
• European Water Partnership (EWP): Coordinator of the regional European Water Stewardship (EWS) process, and active member of the AWS Board of Directors.