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Source record

Aqueduct 4.0: Updated decision-relevant global water risk indicators

Samantha Kuzma, Marc F. P. Bierkens, Shivani Lakshman, Tianyi Luo, Liz Saccoccia, Edwin H. Sutanudjaja, Rens van Beek (2023). WRI Technical Note. World Resources Institute.

Key findings

  • Baseline water stress is scored 0–5 by basin and aggregated to countries; a quarter of the world's population lives in extremely high water-stress countries.
  • Water footprints are only meaningful for scarcity once weighted by where the water was withdrawn.

Record

Source type
Dataset
Study type
Modelling
Topics
Water
Geography
Global, by country and river basin
Funding & conflicts
Not recorded.
Source quality
Moderate evidenceWidely used reference dataset; weighting of food water use is a modelling step with its own assumptions.

Limitations

  • Country averages hide large differences between basins within a country.
  • Scarcity-weighted food footprints depend on assumptions about where each food is grown.

Cite this record

Aqueduct 4.0: Updated decision-relevant global water risk indicators. The Balance of Health. https://thebalanceofhealth.com/sources/wri-aqueduct-water-risk-atlas-2023

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