WWAP Pilot Study on Indicators (PSI)
In an attempt to better understand overall water availability, the WWAP Pilot Study on Indicators (PSI), in partnership with GTN-H (Global Terrestrial Network for Hydrology) and GEO/IGWCO (Water Community of Practice), has developed an innovative methodology for estimating country-level total actual renewable water resources (TARWR). Based on (but not limited to) a combination of hydro-meteorological and high resolution (6 minute) river network, ESRI country boundaries and surface elevation data. This methodology will allow country-level estimates of TARWR to be based increasingly on actual hydromet data, allowing trends to be monitored, which has not previously been possible on a regular basis.
This approach has several advantages, including the identification of TARWR trends (e.g., if certain countries are getting wetter or dryer) and variability (e.g., extreme variations of water supply from one year to the next). This information can in turn be used in combination with socio-economic data sets (e.g., agricultural production, health or GDP) to create highly informative country-level profiles which show linkages between water availability (and variability) and the performance of difference economic and social sectors and policies on a comparative annual basis. The PSI-TARWR also provides vital input data for the System of Environmental and Economic Accounting for Water which is under development by the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD).
WWAP will publish the profiles of 20 countries to showcase the implementation of the afore-mentioned methodology:
- Costa Rica
- South Africa
- Viet Nam