COP 28: Promoting the declaration of 2028 as “Year of Saline Agriculture”: Climate resilient agriculture for sustainable Production Systems and healthy ecosystems in salt-affected areas
Virtual Event, 10/12/2023
The technical session will bring together professionals and experts representing governments and prominent international organizations, which will showcase the benefits of saline agriculture and its potential for adaptation to climate change. It is expected that a lot of participants will attend the session, both in-person and virtually.
This emphasizes the importance of the topic and a major interest in finding solutions in agriculture to mitigate and adapt to salinity stress. This session is particularly relevant in the context of COP28, since climate change can severely increase salinization due to prolonged droughts and overexploitation of aquifers. With scarce rainfall, the groundwater table drops, as water is pumped out for domestic use and farmland irrigation: in coastal and dry inland regions, this can force salt water intrude into aquifers, to flow further inland, aggravating salinity issues.
The session consists of 3 main parts:
- an interactive discussion with high level panel members,
- a movie on saline agriculture, and
- an interactive session with the audience.
This event constitutes a commitment to developing outcomes for saline agriculture and broadening their impact. The session will also endorse the United Nations (UN) “Year of Saline Agriculture” initiative for the year 2028.