━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
【JWF News Vol. 257】 18 November 2025
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◇ Contents ◇
・Report from the Japan Water Forum
– Participation Report: 26th International River Symposium (IRS)
– Participation Report: 2025 Great River Forum “Great River Civilizations – Global Water Security and High-Quality Development”
– Youth Water Forum Asia 2025: Report and Highlights
– Youth Water Forum Video Screened at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan
– Japan Water Forum Visits the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
・Report from the Japan Water Forum
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
– Participation Report: 26th International River Symposium (IRS)
I participated in the 26th International River Symposium (IRS), held on 9–10 September 2025 in Brisbane, Australia.
The International River Symposium, organized by the International River Foundation, is a global forum that brings together river managers, policymakers, scientists, NGOs, the private sector, Indigenous groups, and a wide range of stakeholders. The symposium provides a platform to share the environmental, social, and economic values of rivers and to discuss best practices in basin management. Through knowledge exchange and collaboration, it aims to accelerate practical actions that improve the sustainable management and resilience of rivers worldwide.
The theme of the 26th IRS was “River Revolution: Accelerating Solutions for Climate Resilience.” The program featured a one-day masterclass, a two-day main conference, and a vibrant series of evening events, including the award ceremony for the Thiess International River Prize. The entire program was highly interactive and enriched by diverse perspectives.
Please visit the following website for details:
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/news/23911/
(Reported by Yumiko Asayama, Chief Manager)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
– Participation Report: 2025 Great River Forum “Great River Civilizations – Global Water Security and High-Quality Development”
I participated in the international forum “Great River Civilizations – Global Water Security and High-Quality Development,” held in Wuhan, China, from 26 to 27 September 2025. The forum was co-organized by UNESCO, the Wuhan Municipal People’s Government, and the Xinhua News Agency and Information Center. More than 40 experts from 20 countries and regions attended, along with approximately 200 participants from major universities and research institutions across China.
A notable feature of this forum was that discussions on water issues extended beyond the technical domains of river engineering, environment, technology, and infrastructure to encompass philosophical and humanities-based perspectives such as “civilization” and “culture.” This interdisciplinary lens is rarely seen in conventional water-related forums and proved both refreshing and thought-provoking.
Participants represented a wide range of fields, including engineers, social scientists, cultural anthropologists, archaeologists, museum specialists, and policymakers. This diversity fostered active cross-sectoral exchange of insights.
Please visit the following website for details:
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/news/23917/
(Reported by Yumiko Asayama, Chief Manager)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
– Youth Water Forum Asia 2025: Report and Highlights
Japan Water Forum, Korea Water Forum, and Komib Indonesia jointly hosted the “Youth Water Forum Asia 2025,” an international exchange event focused on water, on September 19–20, 2025, in Jakarta, Republic of Indonesia. A total of 11 high school students participated in the event, presenting and sharing the challenges their regions face regarding water issues and the innovative solutions they are working on.
The event fostered diverse perspectives and facilitated the creation of new exchange networks that transcend regions and cultures. The Japan Water Forum plans to continue hosting such events moving forward to expand opportunities for youth engagement.
Please visit the following website for details:
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/news/23924
(Reported by Koutoku Takeishi, Manager)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
– Youth Water Forum Video Screened at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan
The Youth Water Forum seeks a variety of water-related videos created by high school students (ages 15–18) from Japan and abroad. (Applications for the 2025 edition are currently open.)
From among the submitted videos, six videos that aligned with the theme and purpose of the exhibition were selected and screened at Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan. The screening took place from September 23rd to September 29th, at the D6 Future Life Experience (FLE) Area, within the “A Sound Water Cycle for the Future” section hosted by the Headquarters for Water Cycle Policy, Cabinet Secretariat.
These youth-created videos convey powerful messages about the importance of water, expressed through unique perspectives possible from youth. We sincerely thank everyone who visited the venue!
Please visit the following website for details:
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/news/23882/
(Reported by Koutoku Takeishi, Manager)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
– Japan Water Forum Visits the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia
On October 27, the Japan Water Forum paid a courtesy visit to the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Japan to strengthen collaboration ahead of the 11th World Water Forum in Riyadh in 2027.
We were warmly welcomed by H.E. Ambassador Ghazi Faisal Saeed Binzagr and engaged in a meaningful exchange on shared challenges such as water resources and desalination.
This visit reaffirmed the importance of mutual understanding and ongoing cooperation. Experiencing traditional Saudi hospitality, including dates and coffee, made the occasion truly memorable.
Please visit the following website for details:
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/news/23888/
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
JWF News Archives
https://www.waterforum.jp/en/genre-news/newsletter/
If you wish to post information on our bulletin board, or should you prefer not to receive further JWF News, please contact us. You can also get in touch regarding subscribing, changes of address, or any other comments or requests
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
【JWF News Vol. 257】18 November 2025
Japan Water Forum
6th fl., 5-4 Nihonbashi-Hakozaki-cho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo, 103-0015
TEL: 03-5645-8040 FAX: 03-5645-8041
E-mail: news[at]waterforum.jp URL: https://www.waterforum.jp/en/
※Please change [at] to @
X: https://x.com/JapanWaterForum
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/waterforum.jp
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
