Assessing Water Security at Global and Local Scales

Ensuring that a readily available supply of water that has an acceptable quality for health, livelihoods, and production continues to be a challenge across the world. This challenge is made greater by increasing demands on water supply, increasing variability in water supplies due to climatic change, and increasing construction of large-scale water infrastructure. Political boundaries crossing watersheds further complicates matters. This presentation discusses water security at two scales: 1) a global assessment of transboundary watersheds more likely to experience hydro-political tensions in future years based upon environmental, political, and economic indicators and 2) a methodology to improve water security at the local level. The presentation will draw from work submitted to the Global Environment Facility's Transboundary Waters Assessment Program and the Regional Environmental Center's WATER SUM project.