World Water Day celebrates water and raises awareness of the 2.2 billion people living without access to clean water. This year's theme is about what water means to people, its true value and how we can better protect this vital resource.

How we value water determines how water is managed and shared. The value of water is much more than its price – water has enormous and complex value for our households, culture, health, education, economics and the integrity of our natural environment. While essential, water ecosystems are often put aside and people forget how easily we can lose the privilege of clean drinking water, but also of clean free-flowing rivers that surround us.

Rivers symbolize various values for the community living in its vicinity - human connection with nature, health, but also a sense of pride since the river is a part of the cultural heritage for people living nearby. That connection is growing weaker each day, as well as the river connectivity itself.

© T. Tornar

The lifelineMDD project addresses this issue by strengthening cooperation established among different stakeholders - from nature protection to water management. The goal of the project is to enable learning from each other’s experiences, improve synergies between restoration projects, and make river restoration and management as multifunctional as possible.

Inadequate water management is not the only risk to this resource - economic development and a growing global population means agriculture and industry are getting thirstier and water-intensive energy generation is rising to meet demand. Climate change is making water more erratic and contributing to pollution. As societies balance the demands on water resources, many people’s interests are not being taken into account.

If we overlook any of these crucial values, we risk mismanaging this finite, irreplaceable resource. People depend on free access to clean water, but also, and no less importantly, fish and river birds are dependent on a healthy dynamic river system.

We need tools that make valuing nature more accessible, but also actions at all levels - from communities, business to government—to account for the value of nature and its freshwater resources. Only through nature protection and river restoration, we can help to establish a network of real advocates for clean water and rivers in the years to come.

World Water Day, held on 22 March every year since 1993, focuses on the importance of freshwater. A core focus of World Water Day is to support the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 6: water and sanitation for all by 2030.