The International Initiative on Water Quality (IIWQ) of UNESCO International Hydrology Programme (IHP) is a programme aimed at promoting scientific collaboration to address water quality issues in a holistic manner through joint research activities, knowledge generation and dissemination, and sharing of effective solutions, technologies, policy approaches and best practices among researchers, practitioners and policy-makers as well as among other stakeholders in both developing and developed countries.

UNESCO, through its International Initiative on Water Quality IIWQ under IHP, supports Member States in responding to water quality challenges by promoting scientific research, mobilizing and disseminating knowledge, facilitating the sharing and exchange of technological and policy approaches, fostering capacity building, and raising awareness on water quality. It now publishes the first comprehensive global water quality atlas for freshwater systems, lakes and rivers, retrieved from satellite-based earth observation data.

The information is made freely accessible via the

 UNESCO-IHP IIWQ World Water Quality Portal.

UNESCO provides direct access to spatial and time series information through its UNESCO-IHP IIWQ World Water Quality Portal, a web application accessible from desktop’s and mobile devices. This includes functionalities to view online water quality measures, and to export reports for user defined water bodies and parameters. Environmental managers, politicians and scientists can ingest the service directlyinto their geospatial information systems for analysis and assessments. Training materials supporting users to utilize the new information sources are provided as well at the UNESCO-IHP IIWQ World Water Quality Portal.