Who we are


The Global Network of Water Museums (WAMU-NET) is a non-profit organization based in Venice, Italy, which aims at reconnecting people to water and to all forms of water heritage.
WAMU-NET was created to raise awareness on our precious water heritages by promoting holistic and inter-disciplinary approaches aimed at highlighting the natural, social, cultural, artistic, and spiritual dimensions of any kind of water legacy

The Global Network was endorsed in 2018 as a ‘flagship initiative’ of UNESCO-IHP by the Council of the Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme through the Resolution n.5-XXIII, titled “The Global Network of Water Museum and UNESCO-IHP in support of water sustainability education and water awareness efforts”. In 2021, another Resolution (n.7-XXIV) was endorsed by the Intergovernmental Council of UNESCO-IHP.

Today, water museums display a unique repository of different forms of humankind’s connections with water and its natural, cultural, tangible, and intangible heritage. They exhibit artefacts, techniques and traditional knowledge aimed at preserving the world’s outstanding variety of water-related heritages and values that have been passed down through generations. This is a key knowledge that can still inform and influence everyday life today. 

WAMU-NET supports water awareness education worldwide and a world inventory of water museums. While fostering the fundamental values of any kind of water heritage - whether natural or cultural - and trying to create new links with past management practices and values, the WAMU-NET network contributes to seek for solutions to the global water crisis.

MAIN PARTNER YEAR 2025
Autonomous Province of Trento