Level of water stress (SDG 6.4.2) by major river basin (Global)

**Warning** _Please note that this dataset should not be used as SDG 6.4.2 data._ Level of water stress by major basin calculated on the water consumption (reference year 2018). This map provides a global representation of the level of water stress spatially disaggregated by major river basin based on the freshwater consumption, which is the evapotranspired water in the agricultural sector and the non-returned quota for the industrial and service sectors. The water stress is calculated as the ratio between (a) the amount of freshwater resources consumed in the three economic sectors (Agriculture, Service and Industry) and (b) the total renewable freshwater resources after detracting the amount of water needed to support existing environmental services, also indicated as environmental flows. Statistical data on the return flow are not available in most cases, so a return flow of about 90% was assumed for the services and industrial sectors. For the agricultural sector, the incremental actual ET due to irrigation (estimated using the GlobWat model https://hess.copernicus.org/articles/19/3829/2015/) was used as a proxy. The formula applied is: WSc (%) = [ETinc-irr + (Vs * 0.1) + (Vm * 0.1)] / (TRWR-EF) * 100 Where: - ETinc-irr = incremental ET due to irrigation (from GLobwat) (million m3) - Vs = Water withdrawal for the Service sector (million m3) - Vm = Water withdrawal for the Industry (million m3) - TRWR = Total renewable freshwater resources - EF = Environmental Flow (million m3) Further details on the methodology applied can be found at: https://ucl.scienceopen.com/document/read?vid=18caef6a-0b8f-4e0c-a3e6-807e55d075a2. **Data publication:** 2022-03-11 **Contact points:** Resource Contact: [Riccardo Biancalani](mailto:riccardo.biancalani@fao.org) Resource Contact: [Michela Marinelli](mailto:michela.marinelli@fao.org) Metadata Contact: [AQUASTAT](mailto:aquastat@fao.org) **Data lineage:** Data quality information not available **Resource constraints:** Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) **Online resources:** Download: Level of Water Stress by major river basin calculated on the water consumption

This map provides a global representation of proportion of freshwater withdrawal for the Agriculture sector (VA) over the total freshwater withdrawal (TWW) per major river basins for year 2018. The analysis is based on the national water withdrawal data available in AQUASTAT for year 2018. Here below the formula applied: VA _PERC = VA / TWW Where: VA = Freshwater withdrawal for the Agriculture sector (million m3) TWW = Total freshwater withdrawal (million m3) VA_PERC = Proportion of the freshwater withdrawal for the Agriculture over the total freshwater withdrawal (%) **Data publication:** 2022-03-11 **Contact points:** Resource Contact: [Riccardo Biancalani](mailto:riccardo.biancalani@fao.org) Resource Contact: [Michela Marinelli](mailto:michela.marinelli@fao.org) Metadata Contact: [AQUASTAT](mailto:aquastat@fao.org) **Resource constraints:** Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC BY-NC- SA 3.0 IGO) **Online resources:** Download: Proportion of freshwater withdrawal for the Agriculture sector per major river basin (2018)

This map provides a global representation of proportion of freshwater withdrawal for the Service sector (VS) over the total freshwater withdrawal (TWW) per major river basins for year 2018. The analysis is based on the national water withdrawal data available in AQUASTAT for year 2018. Here below the formula applied: VS_PERC = VS / TWW Where: VS = Freshwater withdrawal for the Service sector (million m3) TWW = Total freshwater withdrawal (million m3) VS _PERC = Proportion of the freshwater withdrawal for the Service over the total freshwater withdrawal (%) **Data publication:** 2022-03-11 **Contact points:** Resource Contact: [Riccardo Biancalani](mailto:riccardo.biancalani@fao.org) Resource Contact: [Michela Marinelli](mailto:michela.marinelli@fao.org) Metadata Contact: [AQUASTAT](mailto:aquastat@fao.org) **Resource constraints:** Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC BY-NC- SA 3.0 IGO) **Online resources:** Download: Proportion of freshwater withdrawal for the Service sector per major river basin (2018)

This map provides a global representation of the dominant economic sector for freshwater withdrawals per major river basins for year 2018. The analysis is based on the national water withdrawal data available in AQUASTAT for year 2018. The dominant sector (SECTOR_DOM) in each river basin is defined as the maximum of the proportion of freshwater water withdrawal for each economic sector respect to the total freshwater withdrawal (TWW) in the basin. Here below the formulas applied: VA_PERC = VA /TWW VS_PERC = VS / TWW VM_PERC = VM/TWW SECTOR_DOM = MAX(VA_PERC, VS_PERC, VM_PERC) Where: VA_PERC = Proportion of the Agriculture freshwater withdrawal over the total freshwater withdrawal (%) VS_PERC = Proportion of the Service freshwater withdrawal over the total freshwater withdrawal (%) VM_PERC = Proportion of Industry freshwater withdrawal over the total freshwater withdrawal (%) TWW = Total freshwater withdrawal (million m3) VA = Freshwater withdrawal for the Agriculture (million m3) VS = Freshwater withdrawal for the Services (million m3) VM = Freshwater withdrawal for the Industry (million m3) **Data publication:** 2022-03-11 **Contact points:** Resource Contact: [Riccardo Biancalani](mailto:riccardo.biancalani@fao.org) Resource Contact: [Michela Marinelli](mailto:michela.marinelli@fao.org) Metadata Contact: [AQUASTAT](mailto:aquastat@fao.org) **Resource constraints:** Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO (CC BY-NC- SA 3.0 IGO) **Online resources:** Download: Dominant sector freshwater withdrawal per major river basin (2018)

The level of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources is the ratio between total freshwater withdrawn by all major sectors and total renewable freshwater resources, after taking into account environmental water requirements. Main sectors, as defined by ISIC standards, include agriculture; forestry and fishing; manufacturing; electricity industry; and services. This indicator is also known as water withdrawal intensity.

This dataset measures relative water demand. Higher values indicate more competition among users.The dataset has a resolution of 0.05 pixels about 5000 metres ( referenced 2023) The baseline water stress (BWS) layer, developed as part of WRI's Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, measures the ratio of total water withdrawals relative to the annual available renewable surface water supplies. BWS serves as a good proxy for water-related challenges more broadly, given that areas of higher water stress will likely be subject to higher depletion of surface and groundwater resources and more competition amongst users, as well as the associated impacts on water quality and other ecosystem services. Watersheds with high baseline water stress may warrant greater need to take appropriate action to respond to watershed risks. A long time series of supply (1950–2010) was used to reduce the effect of multi-year climate cycles and ignore complexities of short-term water storage (e.g., dams, floodplains) for which global operational data are nonexistent. Baseline water stress thus measures chronic stress rather than drought stress. Watersheds with less than 0.012 m/m2 /year of withdrawal and 0.03 m/m2 /year of available blue water were masked as “arid and low water use” since watersheds with low values were more prone to error in the estimates of baseline water stress. Additionally, although current use in such catchments is low, any new withdrawals could easily push them into higher stress categories.