WaterLOUPE: water scarcity risks to the industry and strategies to cope phase 3
WaterLOUPE, a dashboard that identifies water scarcity risks now
and in the future is being developed by Deltares with the
multinational Kimberly-Clark, a manufacturer of personal hygiene
The production processes of Kimberly-Clark require considerable
amounts of water. Being one of the big water users among other
beneficial uses such as drinking water production, agriculture,
ecology and recreation Kimberly-Clark wants to take responsibility
for sustainable water resource management in regions showing a
risk of, among others, water scarcity. Water related risks such as
water scarcity should be assessed to ensure sufficient water of good
quality for now and in the future for all stakeholders in a river basin
at risk. In 2017 Kimberly-Clark and Deltares started a cooperation to
tackle that challenge. The main product of the project is a water risk
dashboard (WaterLOUPE) to visualize the water scarcity risks to all
stakeholders at the local level and at actor-group level. Our aim is to
put water scarcity “under the loupe”.
In 2018, the dashboard was translated to a web-based tool
accessible to all stakeholders and will be released officially to a
broader audience in March 2019, on World Water Day. In 2018, a
conceptual extension of the dashboard was also developed. It
focused on adding a module on sharing adaptation strategies. In this
project we further develop the WaterLOUPE tool by integrating
solution strategies to combat water risks for private sector. By this
way, the new tool will be applicable for private sector to assess
water related climate risks and adaptation strategies to underpin
future investments to increase climate resilience of private sector.
Key aim is to support industries by improving their water
stewardship in catchments all over the world at the same time
supporting them in contributing to the SDG’s such as SDG 6.
Doel van het project
The aim of this project is to improve the current tool (underlying local data scientific concepts and visualisation) and expand the module on adaptive strategies by adding information on adaptive pathways and bankability. The extention will provide information on relevant tipping points of the watergap how measures and strategies can postpone the tipping points and on underlying financial mechanisms. Currently it already provides information to all beneficial users on the water scarcity risks related to the water use and level of water stress at the scale of their watershed. Both the current situation and the situation under different socio-economic and climate change scenarios are assessed and general recommendations related to those risks are shared. The current dashboard is user-friendly publicly available based on data from local national and global scale and presents indicators at the basin sub-basin level and per sector. The web-based version was launched on World Water Day in March 2019 and presented at a dedicated session at the AIWW in November 2019. (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/water-scarcity-related-risks-challenges-companies-sophie-vermooten/?trackingId=wsof0le3UmdLwl4aFlulgQ%3D%3D)In 2020 we will firstly expand and adjust the current design of the adaptive strategies extension by adding information on adaptive pathways and bankability. It will help answer the following questions. Which actor-group will benefit from the different measures? When should the measure be implemented? Which stakeholder is able or not able to act? By whom and how can it be funded or financed? Secondly we will update the current scientific concepts that underly the first version of WaterLOUPE developed in 2017 and 2018. With several local cases developed in different types of catchments climatic and economical zones and many interactions with end-users we need to improve the current tool (underlying local data scientific concepts and visualisation). Third
The production processes of Kimberly-Clark require considerable amounts of water. Being one of the big water users among other beneficial uses such as drinking water production agriculture ecology and recreation Kimberly-Clark wants to take responsibility for sustainable water resource management in regions showing a risk of among others water scarcity. Water related risks such as water scarcity should be assessed to ensure sufficient water of good quality for now and in the future for all stakeholders in a river basin at risk. In 2017 Kimberly-Clark and Deltares started a cooperation to tackle that challenge. One of the main developments of the project is a water risk dashboard (WaterLOUPE) to visualize the water scarcity risks to all stakeholders at the local level. For more information please watch the short engagement movie at https://vimeo.com/370024329. From 2017 to 2019 the approach was implemented for cases in Colombia in Sao Paulo Argentina Cape Town Israel and Bahrain. Contacts with other stakeholders than Kimberly-Clark were initiated in a first engagement meeting with Heineken Shell Wetlands international and Ecolab.With several local cases developed in different types of catchments near mega cities climatic and economical zones and many interactions with end-users we wish to improve the current tool (underlying local data scientific concepts and visualisation) and expand the module on adaptive strategies by adding information on adaptive pathways and bankability. Our goal is to provide the users with insights in the possible measures to decrease water scarcity risks putting these measures in perspective and support them in promoting water stewardship.
Improve design with adaptive pathways and funding mechanismsIndustrial research on how to use and adjust the adaptive pathways methodology for this application. Research on which financial mechanism fits each of the local measures.DLT: co-creation combination of state-of-the-art water expertise with new water related economical concepts KCC: co-creation quality control and input from user perspectiveImprove flexibility of WaterLOUPE based on results of Bahrain and IsraelIndustrial improvement is related to the scientific concepts and underlying algorithms. DLT: co-creation combination of state-of-the-art water expertise with new water related economical concepts KCC: Quality control and input from user perspectiveDevelop the Chennai case for water scarcity riskExperimental apply WaterLOUPE to a first case in Asia in a different social cultural and economical context.DLT: Co organize workshop build web-based WaterLOUPE for Chennai KCC: Co organize workshop and Quality controlTest extension of WaterLOUPE in Cape Town caseExperimental Follow-up the engagement with stakeholders by testing new WaterLOUPE concepts and developments. DLT: prepare and Co organize workshop KCC: prepare and Co organize workshopOutreach and project managementIndustrial essential part of the different activities of the projectDLT: project management joint outreach and engagement with new stakeholdersKCC: joint outreach and engagement with new stakeholders
In this project the innovation lies mostly in the coupling of technical and socio-economic data from different scales (global national local) the processing of these data and the visualization of the results in an understandable and simple way based on scientifically sound concepts. WRI has a global tool (Aqueduct) that presents water related risks to business at the global scale. Deltares is also partner in the development of that tool. WaterLOUPE is the next step in which water scarcity risks are put “under the loupe” meaning it shares detailed information at the local level so that multinationals and other stakeholders in a basin can take adequate and timely measures by using the same knowledge base. Co-creating such a tool in direct cooperation with a manufacturer is new to Deltares and to Kimberly-Clark and to our knowledge has not been done before.Innovative of WaterLOUPE is for example the risk assessment at actor-group level instead of only at sector level. For example it specifies between the impacts of water scarcity for smallholder farmers versus large farms. The distinction in impacts at actor level are key in establishing good water stewardship of the industry for the catchment and in contributing to the SDGs especially SDG 6. Linking the effect of different measures to societal impact is a research topic in development. It is not only about the effect of measures on reducing the overall water gap but what that additional water means to the different user groups is. This is an inclusive approach also addressing the issue of inequality in which we account for the fact that different sector groups place a different value on water depending on the way the water is utilized (well being livelihood income). This would also demonstrate how water allocation choices can affect the magnitude of risk. Scientific concepts that underly these calculations are still in development.Adding adaptation pathways and a general assessment of the level
Alle partijen krijgen alle resultaten van het Project ter beschikking. De resultaten van de samenwerking kunnen breed verspreid worden. Partijen kunnen over deze resultaten vrijelijk publiceren. De resultaten zullen volledig openbaar beschikbaar zijn, met uitzondering van ter beschikking gestelde achtergrondkennis.
De informatie over dit project wordt kenbaar gemaakt via de website van de TKI Deltatechnologie (projectbeschrijving) en de projectwiki van Deltares (projectvoortgang en resultaten).
Na de datum waarop deze Overeenkomst in werking is getreden, maar uiterlijk tot een jaar voor de beoogde datum waarop het Project zal zijn voltooid, kunnen ondernemers en/of onderzoeksinstellingen, die op het terrein van het relevante subsidieprogramma van het TKI werkzaam zijn alsnog als Partij toetreden. Een later toetredende Partij zal een nader overeen te komen bijdrage in kind en/of in cash moeten leveren die in redelijke verhouding staat tot zijn relatief aandeel in het Project na toetreding. De overige Partijen ontvangen vervolgens naar rato een terugbetaling en/ of gedeeltelijke vrijstellingen van hun nog te leveren bijdrage in kind, voor zover niet besloten wordt de bijdrage van de later toetredende Partij aan het projectbudget toe te voegen.