Water Scarcity Risk

Water scarcity refers to the physical abundance or lack of freshwater resources. It can significantly impact business such as production/supply chain disruption, higher operating costs, and growth constraints. Water scarcity is human-driven, and can be aggravated by natural conditions (e.g., aridity, drought periods). It is generally calculated as a function of the volume of water use/demand relative to the volume of water available in a given area. However, water scarcity does not consider whether water is accessible and/or fit for use, as defined by the UN Global Compact CEO Water Mandate (2014). This indicator has already been calculated in the Water Risk Filter (WRF) and has been integrated into the Biodiversity Risk Filter without changes. The Water Risk Filter risk category scarcity is a comprehensive and robust metric as it integrates a total of 7 best available and peer-reviewed datasets covering different aspects of scarcity as well as different modelling approaches: aridity, water depletion, baseline water stress, blue water scarcity, available water remaining, drought frequency probability, and projected change in drought occurrence. What does very high risk mean for this indicator? Areas of very high risk are likely to experience very high levels of water scarcity. See the specific risk indicator layers in the WRF methodology for more details.