Database will help out with water risk

A new, large-scale project to measure water risk will give companies and investors locally specific data.

The Aqueduct project, which has been set up by the US-based World Resources Institute (WRI), will be a database of tools that ‘measure, map, and explain’ water-related risks by providing local and actionable information.

The aim to provide investors with information for better managing exposure directly follows similar projects showing a recent upsurge in the importance of water as a CSR issue, such as the Carbon Disclosure Project’s Water Disclosure initiative.

Aqueduct will use hydrological modelling of water availability and scientific analysis of additional water-related risks in river basins worldwide, as part of an acknowledgment that ‘different types of companies, investors and water users are exposed to different water risks’.

Unlike other projects in the area, Aqueduct includes a number of water risk indicators, including the productivity and efficiency of use by local communities.

Rob Kimball, senior programme co-ordinator at the World Resources Institute, said: ‘All the water issues we’re encountering are extremely local and extremely complicated. There are numerous factors associated with water-related risks. We are going to be encountering these problems more and more all over the world. But we still talk about water in simplistic terms. We think about having access to water to operate, but water impacts businesses, people and the entire economy in complicated ways.’