activity

1/ Inventory and monitoring of wetlands

MedWet has produced technical tools to enable governments, scientists and wetland managers gather high quality information on wetlands. Such accurate information on where wetlands lie, what types of ecosystems they involve and what condition they are in, is necessary so that countries may evaluate the overall state of wetlands and plan for environmental improvement.

Presently over eight thousand sites across nine Mediterranean countries have been classified using MedWet inventory methods.

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2/ Socio-economic analysis of wetlands

MedWet has prepared a set of socio-economic reports to give countries information that will help to complement biological data and develop an integrated understanding of wetland values.

Based on quality information submitted by five Mediterranean countries, concentrating on five pilot sites, these reports identify economic uses of wetlands, analyze the impact of these activities on the ecological functions of wetlands, quantify wetland services not directly related to market transactions, such as aquifer recharge and propose guidelines for sustainable economic activity in Mediterranean wetlands.

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3/ Wetland management

Wetland management is an essential tool in the effort to protect and improve wetlands. It involves evaluation of all social, cultural and ecological values of wetlands as well as their economic values to achieve the best overall allocation of wetland resources between wetland users.

Management is a process that goes beyond the boundaries of the wetland itself and involves planning of land and water use at a river basin level. An essential part of management is to ensure that adequate water of the right quality is allocated to the wetland at the right time to create the soil, micro-organisms, animal and plant communities that wetlands are made up of.

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4/ Capacity building

MedWet actively seeks to help Mediterranean countries to build their capacity to achieve wise use of wetlands. This depends crucially on having adequate knowledge resources for wetland management.

Through the creation of sub-regional networks of experts and administrators at the national and local levels, MedWet fosters networking for sharing of knowledge on wetlands.

Moreover, MedWet promotes opportunities for training on wetland management, as an important way of building skills and expertise needed to protect wetlands.

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5/ Public Awareness

Through its outreach program MedWet seeks to motivate people to act for the wise use of wetlands. By promoting public awareness of wetland values as part of the project it carries out MedWet contributes to generating recognition of the benefits that wetlands provide. The MedWet Communications, Education and Public Awareness Strategy (CEPA Strategy), sets out in detail the ways in which MedWet works to build awareness on the value of wetland heritage.

World Wetlands Day, on 2 February every year, provides an occasion to celebrate the ways in which wetlands enrich our lives. On this day a number of governments, NGOs and environmental associations organize events for the public, including wetland visits, bird watching trips, film screenings.

6/ Disseminating research results

MedWet publishes a variety of books, CD-ROMs and other materials to ensure that knowledge gained through projects is made available to all audiences interested in wetland protection.
The publications section on this website offers a number of works on-line.

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7/ Integrated water resource management for agriculture and nature

MedWet has recently expanded the scope of its work to address the issue of integrated water resource management for food and ecosystems. Particularly in the South and East Mediterranean basin, where water scarcity is ever present, it is important to make the most of each drop for crops and for nature.

For this purpose MedWet works together with a number of primary international organizations in the water field in the "Global Dialogue on Water, Food and Environment".

By establishing national and river basin level dialogues among those representing national administrations, agricultural producers and the environmental community, MedWet works to create the knowledge background necessary to find solutions and avoid conflict among different users of water.

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