Building International Best Practices for Sustainable Water Management: USM’s Global Collaboration through REDAC

Universiti Sains Malaysia, through the River Engineering and Urban Drainage Research Centre (REDAC), continues to lead collaborative research that shapes global standards for sustainable water management. These efforts reflect the university’s strong commitment to collaboration for SDG best practice, where USM actively works through international collaboration and research to review comparative approaches and develop international best practice on tackling the SDGs, creating meaningful, evidence-based sustainability solutions.

The Leveraging Water for Sustainability Programme brought together regional and international experts to exchange knowledge on sustainable water infrastructure, ecohydraulics, and climate resilience. The initiative included 30 participants from USM and the University of Miyazaki (Japan) who jointly explored comparative approaches to river basin management, sediment control, and flood mitigation. This structured collaboration strengthened cross-cultural learning and contributed to shared innovation in water research, directly supporting SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation and SDG 13: Climate Action.

By combining Malaysian expertise with global research networks, REDAC promotes open data exchange, field-based experimentation, and capacity-building workshops that translate research findings into international best practice. Participants compared methodologies from across Asia and other regions to identify scalable, evidence-based solutions for sustainable water infrastructure and climate adaptation.

Through these initiatives, USM demonstrates its leadership in collaboration for SDG best practice, using its platform through international collaboration and research to review comparative approaches and develop international best practice on tackling the SDGs. This ongoing work reinforces USM’s role as a global knowledge hub that delivers practical, sustainable, and inclusive outcomes for both local communities and the wider international environment.