Evaluating water security across scales: diagnostics and trends

Water security is a concept that accounts for multiple types of water-related risks and their societal impacts. It has proved to be a complex concept, which is difficult to frame and even more challenging to evaluate. This thesis aims to evaluate water security across scales and to begin to disentangle the concept’s complexity by looking at trends and relationships between water security indicators. The foundation of this thesis is the development of a water security framing and diagnostic methodology. The framing is built upon previous water security framings and metrics. It is comprised of seven key categories of information or dimensions of water security: (1) drivers, (2) historical and cultural context, (3) the water resource system, (4) system performance, (5) outcomes, (6) actions, and (7) trends. These seven categories encapsulate a pragmatic view of water security, which is shaped by the possibility of obtaining meaningful metrics as well as by theoretical considerations. The diagnostic method used to assess water security and developed herein draws its inspiration from the medical field. The evaluation begins with an information gathering phase that entails a brief overview of the status and trends of the relevant data in order to develop an initial diagnosis. This water security framing and diagnostic methodology are applied to a case study of Pakistan. A dashboard tool comprised of 52 indicators is developed to act as a visual aid for the case study. The dashboard’s utility is in its ability to consolidate information across five of the seven dimensions of water security and to aid in the first step of the diagnostic methodology: information gathering. This case study shows that a dashboard tool can be used to quickly highlight potential water security problems within a country. Four additional dashboards are generated for Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in order to conduct a regional comparative analysis allowing for the provisional detection of patterns between indicators. One of the flaws in a national water security assessment is the inability to account for sub-national heterogeneity. Therefore, following the country analysis, a multiscale water security analysis is conducted, with the United States serving as a case study. This analysis generates a water security index at the state and county levels. This index is created based on the system performance and outcome dimensions of the overall water security framing to highlight areas of water insecurity. This study demonstrates how larger scales of analysis can conceal areas of water insecurity, whilst also providing a systematic methodology to compare water security across administrative boundaries. The final section of this thesis examines indicator trends and relationships to begin to better understand the relationships between water security indicators. Trend analysis and econometric methods are used to empirically test the relationship between water productivity and water stress using 166 countries. A negative relationship is found between the two indicators. In addition, potential drivers of water stress are analysed. It is found that the relationships between indicators vary when looking at changes within a country versus looking at the relationships across countries. Within a country, water stress is associated with water productivity, population, cultivated land area, and political stability, whereas gross domestic product (GDP) and precipitation are related to variations of stress across countries. The findings of this thesis, as well as the developed methods and tools, have the ability to impact academic audiences and policymakers. This study expands upon the academic literature by developing an updated framing and a diagnostic methodology. The dashboard tool and systematic creation of a sub-national water security index highlight key water security challenges and hotspots that can be used by policymakers across scales to inform potential interventions. The thesis also sheds light on relationships between water security indicators. Ultimately, this thesis develops novel ways to evaluate water security, advances the discussion around the concept, and can help to focus future water security analyses.</p

Water stress, water productivity, and related drivers by country

This panel dataset was generated in the Spring of 2019 to complete the analysis of trends of both country level water stress and water productivity. Additional data was added to complete an econometric analysis of the relationships between productivity and stress as well as potential drivers of water stress. This Excel dataset was imported into Stata for the econometric analysis

Assessing water security across scales: a case study of the United States

Water security is a multi-dimensional concept that varies across spatial scales. However, evaluations tend to focus on a single scale, which can suppress spatial heterogeneity and may not be relevant to the scale of decision making. We have identified four considerations encountered when selecting a scale in water security analyses: (1) the natural scale of phenomena, (2) the scale of data availability, (3) the decision-making scale, and (4) precision versus accuracy. To explore these considerations and how they may impede a multiscale analysis, we have created a water security index comprised of ten sub-indicators focused on system performance and outcomes. These sub-indicators are assembled across three scales: the United States of America and its constituent states and counties. A tiered multiscale analysis was difficult for several reasons, not least because of the challenges of obtaining requisite data. Nonetheless, the analysis has proved to be worthwhile by exposing areas of insecurity within the United States both at the state and county levels, and by demonstrating greater spatial heterogeneity than might previously have been assumed. Combining the sub-national indicators with a more comprehensive national assessment can support decision-making in terms of prioritization of policies and investments to target hotspots of insecurity

Water stress, water productivity, and related drivers by country

This panel dataset was generated in the Spring of 2019 to complete the analysis of trends of both country level water stress and water productivity. Additional data was added to complete an econometric analysis of the relationships between productivity and stress as well as potential drivers of water stress. This Excel dataset was imported into Stata for the econometric analysis

Water Stress and Productivity: An Empirical Analysis of Trends and Drivers

Water scarcity is a global risk that could arguably be mitigated by using water more efficiently, that is, increasing water's productivity. However, the effects of water productivity on water stress have not been empirically tested or validated across countries. Evidence from other natural resource sectors suggests that improving productivity may, in fact, lead to “rebound” effects that exacerbate resource exploitation. An econometric analysis is used to evaluate the relationship between water stress and productivity at the country level. A 1.0% increase in productivity is associated with a 0.81% decrease in water stress through time within a country, on average, and accounts for 75% of the variance of water stress. This suggests that targeting improvements in productivity have the ability to lower water stress. Analysis of trends in stress and productivity demonstrates that several developed countries are starting to exhibit decreasing trends in stress. Conversely, stress is low in developing countries, but rising. Productivity is generally increasing across all countries. Fixed effects panel regressions demonstrate that population, cultivated land, and political stability are also related to a variance in stress within a country. Differences in gross domestic product and precipitation explain variations in stress when looking across countries. The results of this analysis show that as a country develops, water stress is initially likely to increase. Increasing water productivity, which typically occurs later in a country's development pathway, is linked to decreasing stress, so water stress has the potential to be mitigated if a “productivity transition” were to take place sooner

A diagnostic dashboard to evaluate country water security

While water security is widely regarded as an issue of global significance and concern, there is not yet a consensus on a methodology for evaluating it. The difficulty in operationalizing the concept comes from its various interpretations and characteristics at different spatial and temporal scales. In this paper, we generate a dashboard comprised of 52 indicators to facilitate a rapid assessment of a country’s water security and to focus the first step of a more comprehensive water security diagnostic assessment. We design the dashboard around a conceptualization of water security that builds upon existing framings and metrics. To illustrate its usefulness, we apply the dashboard to a case study of Pakistan and a regional cross-country comparative analysis. The dashboard provides a rapid view of the water security status, trends, strengths, and challenges for Pakistan. The cross-country comparative analysis tentatively identifies relationships between indicators such as water stress and the transboundary dependency ratio, with countries exhibiting high values in both variables being especially vulnerable to transboundary water risk. Overall, this dashboard (1) provides quantitative information on key water-related variables at the country level in a consistent manner and (2) helps to design and focus more in-depth water security diagnostic studies