Water2Invest (Global facility for calculating investments needed to bridge the climate induced water gap)

Challenge Platform: Land and water

Project Start Date: 09/2012

Lead partner: Utrecht University, NL

Project type: Innovation – Develops and brings to market climaterelevant knowledge, products and services

Project lead: Prof Dr Marc FP Bierkens, Utrecht University

Partners

The Water2Invest project involves 5 partners:

Concept

As a result of climate change, global water resources are running scarce. However, there are a number of adaptation strategies that can be implemented, providing ways to cope with a changing environment. The Water2Invest project aims to develop a service that will allow users to assess the demand and availability of water resources and subsequently assess the effectiveness and costs of adaptation strategies to reduce the impact of climate change.

The Climate Change Issue

As a result of climate change, global water supplies are expected to shrink. Meanwhile, freshwater resources are in high demand for agricultural, industrial and domestic uses. Climate change causes a rise in global temperature and, in turn, increases the atmosphere’s capacity to hold water vapour. This can lead to heavy rainfall which could add to water resources, but often causes rapid movement of fresh water supplies back to oceans. Climate change is likely to cause water cycle intensification, leading to more extreme floods and droughts globally.

The Project Solution

The Water2Invest project will develop an online service that shows the water availability and demand of selected countries and regions. This will allow stakeholders world-wide, to prepare in advance for potential water deficiencies. The project aims to combine water and climate systems and manage them in a way that facilitates adaptation, socio-economic and financial strategies on a single platform.

This user-friendly service is accessible to all and aims to raise public awareness for the gap between climate knowledge and adaptation strategies. The final product of the project is available in two formats:

• A free service providing basic tools for regional resource assessment, combined with adaptation and investment recommendations.

• A premium service providing a more in-depth analysis of resource availability and demand. This will enable the prioritisation of adaptation strategies based on financial, regional, socio-economic and environmental significance.

The Role of Climate-KIC

Climate-KIC provided a substantial amount of funding and was instrumental in the rapid initiation of the project. Climate-KIC’s network provided the perfect partners to the project and helped bring the project to market.