The success and failure of international advocacy and discussion processes related to water and sanitation depends on organizational, operational, and follow-up characteristics such as the discussion style, contents, and expression of the output, and follow-up processes. Many processes have experienced difficulties and errors attributable to, inter alia, lack of scientific knowledge related to success factors and their relations in organizing such processes. A survey, based on questionnaires and case studies, has been conducted on the United Nations SecretaryGeneral’s Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation (UNSGAB) to elucidate factors underpinning the success of a small high-level group on water. Characteristics of the advocacy/discussion process, organizational factors, and follow-up processes of UNSGAB have been examined to identify their success factors and relations in realizing major recommendation items of its Flagship Document: "Hashimoto Action Plan 1."Results show that major recommendation items of the "Hashimoto Action Plan 1" have been realized successfully because of (a) proactive collaboration between secretariat and members, (b) clear-cut and doable recommendation, (c) influence and networks of the Chair and members, (d) identification and motivation of influential partner institutions, and (e) combination of top-down advocacy and bottom-up promotion of the recommendation.

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 Analytical research has been conducted through questionnaire surveys and case studies to examine the effectiveness of approaches used by the World Water Forum in realizing major global actions on water and sanitation.Results show the following.
1.World Water Forums are characterized by their size, openness, non-binding outcomes, and trials and follow-ups of innovative discussion processes.
2.Organizers of the forums clearly recognize and make maximum use of their strengths to achieve their objectives, i.e., galvanizing global action related to water and sanitation.
3.Priorities in organizing the forums are numbers of high-level participants, diversity of participants, and media attention.
4.The following approaches have been taken to transform forum outcomes and influence into concrete global actions: promoting participation of multi-stakeholders and highlighting their roles in achieving the forum objectives, urging voluntary commitments by governments and organizations during the forum, and announcing clear messages related to specific issues.
5.The effectiveness of these approaches has been verified through case studies following the forums.

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 The accuracy and remarks of water isotope measurement of small samples with analyzer based on Wavelength-Scanned Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy (WS-CRDS) are discussed. Measurements were conducted with 2.0 mLvials. The minimum sample volume to obtain the measured values was 0.3 mL. However, the measured values were larger than the true values by the effects of evaporation of samples within the vials if the sample volume was small.Effects of evaporation differed between the samples themselves, which have different stable isotope ratio, but also between δ¹⁸O and δD. The salient advantage of this type of analyzer is that the sample consumption is extremely small. However, to conduct an accurate analysis, the required minimal sample volume is 1.0 mL. The maximal volume is up to about 1.7 mL.

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