Aqueduct 4.0 Current and Future Country Rankings

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Please find the methodology and data calculation descriptions in the technical note, here: Aqueduct 4.0: Updated Decision-Relevant Global Water Risk Indicators

Most water-related decisions are made across political or administrative boundaries, creating a demand for simple and robust water information to support decision making at the administrative level. However, accurately assessing the state of water resources across administrative boundaries is a significant challenge; and simple, comparable, and robust water information to support decision making at that level remains sparse.

WRI brings catchment-level data up to the country and provincial levels using a weighted aggregation methodology based on gross water demand. The gross demand data is used to indicate where the human need for water is greatest—it is also where socioeconomic dependency on water is most critical.

This dataset provides the country and provincial aggregated water risk in tabular form. The water risk data is based on Aqueduct™ 4.0, the latest iteration of WRI’s water risk framework designed to translate complex hydrological data into intuitive indicators of water-related risk. It includes baseline risks as well as future projections of water risks. The future projections are based on CMIP6 climate projections for 3 scenarios covering 3 milestone years: 2030, 2050, and 2080.

This database includes: 

• Country rankings of baseline annual water risks.
• Country rankings of projected annual water risks.
• Provincial rankings of baseline annual water risks.
• Provincial rankings of projected annual water risks.

Key elements of Aqueduct, such as overall water risk, cannot be directly measured and therefore are not validated. Aqueduct remains primarily a prioritization tool and should be augmented by local and regional deep dives.