United NationsOffice for Outer Space Affairs

Fifth Space4Water Stakeholder Meeting

co-organised by the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA)
an the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW)

Objectives

At the fifth Space4Water Stakeholder Meeting the community has an opportunity to meet and exchange. The objectives for the meeting include:

• Fostering knowledge exchange between Space4Water stakeholders, professionals, young professionals, and Indigenous voices;
• Presentations of country cases
• Co-developing space-based solutions for water-related challenges; and
• Identifying and addressing other ways to improve Space4Water community interaction and achieving shared objectives.

Dates and location

The workshop will take place in an in person format with limited possibility for online participation 29-30 May 2025 at Conference Room 2, at the Vienna International Centre. Accepted participants will receive an email notification from the meeting organisers.

31 March 2025: Application deadline for those who apply for funding and are submitting a country case or water-related challenge to be addressed, or a draft solution to be presented and further refined during the meeting
30 April 2025: Application deadline for self-funded participants submitting a country case study, water challenge or space-based solution, but are self-funded. Please take into account the times to receive a visa for Austria at the respective embassy or consulate may take more than five weeks, and apply early if you need a visa. 
11 May2023: Deadline for self-funded applicants with no presentation during the meeting who contribute to solutions.

Funding Applications

Participants from developing countries, can choose one or more of three ways to be eligible for funding by UNOOSA.

  1.       Submitting and presenting a country case study

Attention, country case studies are only accepted by staff of governmental institutions, who have green light from at least 2 other relevant institutions in the country dealing with water issues and being reliant on space-based data to do so or having serious plans to use them. If you would like to develop a country case study, reach out to oosa[at]un.org.

  2.       Submitting a detailed description of a water-related challenge

If your country or a community in your faces a serious water-challenge that you are committed to address, but need input from other experts. Those of you who submit a water-challenge commit to taking a lead role in coordinating a group of volunteers to meet over the course of the drafting solution process. Your water challenge description needs to include:

Title, short description, detailed description of the challenge including scientific sources and research on the issue if available, potential relevant case studies, affected habitat or community, consequences if no action happens, pictures and or maps, thematic keywords, region/country, relevant SDG indicators. Furthermore, please add what solution you think would be useful to address the challenge, what knowledge and resources you have to address it, what knowledge and resources you lack to address it.

3.       Having contributed to a solution currently under development

Let us know which challenge you are addressing by contributing to which solution, and what role/responsibilities you took over in the team.

Preliminary Agenda

Registration

To be considered for participation in the Stakeholder Meeting, Space4Water stakeholders and featured professionals, young professionals and Indigenous voices can register here.

Attention: only community members will be accepted to participate. If you are not yet part of the Space4Water Community of Practice and are interested in joining (the event and the community) apply as a community member first, for  funded participants community applications have to be made no later than 31 March, for self funded no later than 15 April 2025. Read the instructions how to join below. 

If your organisation is not yet a Space4Water stakeholder, but active in using space-based technology or data for water (resource) management, hydrology or ecosystem preservation please apply to become a stakeholder first, by filling this form.

If you are a young professional using space-based technology or data for water-related issues and are not yet part of our young professionals, fill in this form.

Note: applying as a stakeholder or young professional, does not mean you applied for attending at the meeting. You need to do both to be considered for participation.

Logistics

Hotel recommendations

Contact

All Space4Water community members have the contact details of the Space4Water project manager. If you are a new member, please register via the links shared under Registration, and you will be contacted by our staff.