In August 2012 UN-Water approved a new periodicity and structure for future World Water Development Reports (WWDR). The WWDR is now an annual thematic report with a focus on a different strategic water issues each year, produced by the UN World Water Assessment Programme (WWAP) in collaboration with UN-Water members and partners and possible other contributors.  At the UN-Water SPM meeting in August 2014, it was decided that the 2018 World Water Development Report would be on the theme of Nature based solutions for water.

WWAP prepared a background document describing the theme and its scope and a draft ‘storyline’ as well as a list of potential ‘main messages’ for the report. These were discussed at a workshop on 13-14 September 2016 at the WWAP’s offices near Perugia in Italy attended by some 40 participants from key organisations including FAO, UNDP, INWEH, UNIDO, IISA, IHE, IWMI, UNW, WaterLEX, Ramsar and UNESCO. IAHS was represented by Professor Mike Acreman (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology), who is co-Editor of Hydrological Sciences Journal and Secretary IAHS Ltd. He suggested that IAHS could provide technical advice our understanding of hydrological processes that underpin nature-based solutions for water (including floods and droughts, improving water quality, managing sediments, conserving river ecosystems); this was welcomed by WWAP. He also proposed the use of natural capital as concept to help explain nature-based solutions to politicians and business leaders. All participants recognized that future stage of report development would need wider input particularly from water and environmental management practitioners from around the world.