The Global Water Initiative’s work is organized into five themes:
Global Water Availability and Use
GWI quantifies where people are using water and how use compares with available water resources. A tool developed by GWI researchers describes water resource availability across the globe. By incorporating seasonal and drought-related water stress and providing data at a much finer scale than previously available, it illuminates risks and opportunities in new and valuable ways.
Take a look at our publications or read more about our work:
Water Productivity
Water availability is just one piece of the puzzle; we also need to know how effectively we use water. To evaluate trade-offs and measure room for improvement, GWI builds on lead scientist Kate Brauman’s 2013 global analysis of “crop per drop” — agricultural water productivity — to evaluate the productivity of water used for energy, people and nature.
Take a look at our publications or read more about our work:
Water Is Local
Global analyses provide key insights for targeting water-related investments and interventions; GWI also works with partners to put global indicators to work on the ground. Partners include Bonsucro, a sustainable sugarcane certifier that adapted GWI’s “crop per drop” methodology into a standard for sustainable water use by sugarcane growers worldwide. GWI is also working with MyRain, an India-based business that distributes drip irrigation systems to smallholder farmers, to quantify water savings.
Take a look at our publications or read more about our work:
Relationships Between Land and Water
Water enables and constrains what we do
on land, and how we manage land affects water. GWI brings hydrologic ecosystem services into the picture to quantify
benefits provided by nature. Working with the Natural Capital Project, The Nature Conservancy and other organizations interested in payment for watershed services projects, we’re helping improve management decisions and evaluate outcomes. ClimateWIse, focused on Investment In Watershed Services projects in South America, is one of our flagship projects.
Take a look at our publications or read more about our work:
Communicating Water
The GWI team worked with the Science Museum of Minnesota to write and provide narration for a Science on a Sphere film “Eating Water,” part of the museum’s Future Earth exhibition. The film is freely available to anyone with a spherical projection system. Read more about this and other work:
