The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI)
The research behind Water Nexus: the questions it asks, the methods it uses and how evidence is reviewed before it is published.
Water Nexus research is the evidence work behind the platform: questions such as catchment hydrology and groundwater and aquifers, answered with hydrology and water science as well as water and environmental engineering and reviewed before publication. Every result carries an evidence label, from observed to modelled or expert judgement, and missing data is shown as missing, never filled silently.
Fig.How a finding is reviewed before it is published. Design, not a record.
Rivers, lakes and how far each division sits from mapped surface water, shown for the Tigris and Euphrates Basin as an example geography for this subject.
Catchment hydrology and the complete water balance.
Groundwater depletion, recharge, contamination and rights.
Compound water extremes, forecasts and limits.
Treatment, safety, infrastructure and equity.
Utility asset condition and continuity during outages.
Transboundary evidence and institutions.
The research agenda starts from the places where basin decisions are made on weak evidence. Most are not about better hydrology in isolation but about the joins between water and the systems that depend on it.
Questions come from basin organisations, utilities and national water agencies through the contact desk and from the question step of the Nexus cycle. One that names a decision-holder, a basin and a horizon is ready for research; one that does not is returned with the missing elements named.
Results are labelled as observed, officially reported, estimated, modelled, forecast, scenario or expert judgement. Missing data is shown as missing, never filled silently.
Each term as this page uses it. Where a standard-setting body defines the term, the wording follows that body.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Research integrity | Conduct of research in line with principles of reliability, honesty, respect and accountability, as the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity sets them out. |
| Evidence label | A tag on an assertion naming the kind of evidence behind it, such as observed, officially reported or modelled. |
| Reproducibility | Obtaining consistent results using the same data and analysis code as the original study. |
| Ungauged basin | A catchment with no flow measurements at its outlet, whose hydrology is estimated by transferring model parameters from similar gauged catchments. |
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
The current service level is R0: information and enquiries. An enquiry receives a reference and names the next step; applications, payments, compute allocations and registrations open only when their team, terms and review capacity exist.