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The objective of the WAT Group is to provide the scientific foundation needed for addressing the quest for water security across scales and to help bridge science-policy-practice gaps related to water management by leading global efforts on integrated assessment of water resources and exploring transformation pathways towards a water secure future.
Water plays a central role in all human activities and needs to be managed efficiently and sustainably. The WAT Group pushes the boundary of transdisciplinary water science enabled by the institute’s recognized expertise in systems science approaches, to provide the scientific knowledge needed to address the quest for water security. The group aims to lead global efforts on integrated assessment of water supply and demand and identify solutions options that improve water scarcity, ameliorate water quality, and enhance resilience to extreme events, while at the same time engaging with key stakeholders at different levels to translate science into policy.
The group’s research has informed the development of various widely used models, which will continually be refined and extended to enable application and analysis at policy-relevant spatial scales. The group contributes to several IIASA research themes including biodiversity and ecosystem services, production and consumption, technology and innovation, and governance and institutions, by providing the water resources research expertise required for the development of a systemic approach to resolving sustainability issues.
Models, tools, datasets
Community Water Model (CWatM)
Global Hydro-economic Model (ECHO)
Global Agro-Ecological Zones (GAEZ)
Water Quality Modeling (WQM)
Projects
Sustainable water quality management supporting Uganda’s development ambitions (SWAQ-Uganda)
Advancing WFaS East Africa: Scaling out resilient water and agricultural systems (scaleWAYS)
SOS Water- Establishing a Safe Operating Space (SOS) for the global water resources system (SOS Water)
The World Bank ECA Regional Water Security Initiative: Development of an Assessment and Preparation of Diagnostic Reports
Staff
Günther Fischer
Emeritus Research Scholar (WAT)
Amin Elshorbagy
Guest Research Scholar (WAT)
Simon Langan
Senior Guest Research Scholar (WAT)
Esther Greenwood
Research Assistant (NODES, WAT)
News
26 May 2023
President of the UN General Assembly visits IIASA
IIASA was honored to welcome a delegation from the Office of the President of the 77th UN General Assembly led by H.E. Ambassador Csaba Kőrösi earlier this week.
22 May 2023
Science for Policy Podcast: Transdisciplinary research for policymaking
Bárbara Willaarts and Thomas Schinko join SAPEA (Science Advice for Policy by European Acadamies) for an episode of their Science for Policy Podcast!
They explain why transdisciplinary means more than just collaborating with other areas of science, why co-creation means more than just working with policymakers to understand their needs, and why both are needed to give really good quality policy advice.
25 April 2023
IIASA at Renexpo Interhydro Conference
IIASA researchers present results from the WaterStressAT project at the Renexpo Interhydro Conference in Salzburg.
Events
30 January 2023
How will the European Green Deal impact EU Water Policy?
19 October 2022 IIASA, Laxenburg, Austria
SOS Water Project kicked-off!
Focus
21 October 2022
Financial instruments for disaster risk and their effects on economic growth
Julian Joseph writes about a recent study in which researchers used a novel concept in the economic modeling of disaster risk reduction to explore how damages from disasters can be compensated for and what effect they have on economic growth.
08 September 2022
Co-development – more than just a buzz word
Striving for excellence and designing truly innovative solutions in science requires many creative minds from different disciplines and parts of society to work together.
01 June 2022
Water tomorrow
A new tool to assess water security can help nations plan for a challenging future.
Publications
Wu, L., Elshorbagy, A., & Helgason, W. (2023). Assessment of agricultural adaptations to climate change from a water-energy-food nexus perspective. Agricultural Water Management 284 e108343. 10.1016/j.agwat.2023.108343.
Smolka, G., Kosatica, E., Berger, M., Kissinger, M., Fridman, D. , & Koellner, T. (2023). Domestic water versus imported virtual blue water for agricultural production: A comparison based on energy consumption and related greenhouse gas emissions. Journal of Industrial Ecology 10.1111/jiec.13403. (In Press)
de Bruijn, J. , Smilovic, M. , Burek, P. , Guillaumot, L. , Wada, Y. , & Aerts, J.C.J.H. (2023). GEB v0.1: a large-scale agent-based socio-hydrological model – simulating 10 million individual farming households in a fully distributed hydrological model. Geoscientific Model Development 16 (9) 2437-2454. 10.5194/gmd-16-2437-2023.
Valencia, R., Guillaumot, L. , Sahu, R.K. , Nam, C., Lierhammer, L., & Máñez Costa, M. (2023). An assessment of water management measures for climate change adaptation of agriculture in Seewinkel. Science of the Total Environment 885 e163906. 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163906.
Ermolieva, T., Zagorodny, A., Bogdanov, V.L., Wang, G., Havlik, P. , Rovenskaya, E. , Komendantova, N. , Kahil, T. , Ortiz-Partida, J.- P., Balkovič, J. , Skalský, R. , & Folberth, C. (2023). Consistent linkage of distributed food, water, energy, environmental (FWEE) models: perspectives of data and modeling platform for integrated FWEE security NEXUS analysis and planning. In: EGU General Assembly 2023, 23-28 April 2023, Vienna.