GCRI · Platform

Water Nexus

Q: Where are findings published?

Reviewed outputs appear on the publications page , and contributions to the Reports series are listed on Publish in Reports.

Q: How do I report an error?

Use corrections and concerns , or write to the integrity concern form. A correction is recorded as a new version, never a silent edit.

The interdependence of water services, watersheds, human health, energy, food and economic resilience. Water Nexus is an established platform of The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation.

Open Mandate and publisher About GCRI

On the map below

Precipitation: NASA GPM IMERG12 Oct 2026
Soil moisture: NASA SMAP Level 411 Oct 2026
Flood water: NASA VIIRS flood product14 Oct 2026
River flow: 53 river stations, GloFASsnapshot 14 Oct 2026

The interactive map needs JavaScript; the station table under the map lists every river value.

Layers 4

Rivers

Precipitation

Floods

Drought and soil moisture

Snow and ice

Groundwater and storage

Oceans and context

3D columns: nexus exposure per hexagon

Latest available

NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · GloFAS via Open-Meteo · Natural Earth

Loading the latest NASA imagery.

3D: drag to move, right-drag or Shift and drag to turn and tilt, two fingers to pinch, turn and tilt; 2D: drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; select a river station to pin its 37-day discharge. Relief in 3D is ASTER GDEM elevation, exaggerated so it reads at world scale.

Today’s water picture across the world: rain, flood water, soil moisture, snow and ice, water storage and ocean warmth from NASA satellites and models, draped on the terrain, with river flow at 53 great rivers against the usual for the month.Each layer is a NASA or Copernicus product shown as published, with its own date; satellite and model values, not ground measurements and not a flood warning.

Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Copernicus GloFAS · Open-Meteo · Natural EarthSources and licences

We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA’s Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA’s Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
GPM IMERG precipitation, NASA Precipitation Processing System; distributed by the NASA Goddard Earth Sciences Data and Information Services Center (GES DISC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
SMAP Level 4 soil moisture and snow mass, NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office; distributed by the NASA National Snow and Ice Data Center DAAC; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
GHRSST Level 4 MUR analyses, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
GLDAS Noah land surface model, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA GES DISC; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
GRACE and GRACE-FO JPL mascon solution, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory; distributed by the NASA Physical Oceanography DAAC (PO.DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
Kuzma, S., et al. 2023. Aqueduct 4.0: Updated decision-relevant global water risk indicators. World Resources Institute. Licensed under CC BY 4.0. CC BY 4.0
ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into hexagonal cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
Contains modified Copernicus Emergency Management Service information 2026. Neither the European Commission nor ECMWF is responsible for any use of this information. Discharge compared with a computed monthly normal (modified). CEMS-FLOODS licence
Weather and flood data by Open-Meteo.com, licensed under CC BY 4.0. Discharge compared with a computed monthly normal (modified). CC BY 4.0
River discharge: Copernicus GloFAS via Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0); normal: median daily discharge for the calendar month, 2018 to 2024 (8th to 21st of each month), Copernicus GloFAS via Open-Meteo.
Hexagon cells: Uber hexagonal (h3-js, Apache-2.0), computed at build time.

Layers and dates

Precipitation rate, daily mean: GPM IMERG, NASA GES DISC · 12 Oct 2026
Precipitation rate, latest half hour: GPM IMERG, NASA GES DISC · 14 Oct 2026, 00:30 UTC
Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
Root-zone soil moisture, 0 to 100 cm: SMAP Level 4, NASA NSIDC DAAC · 11 Oct 2026
Surface soil moisture, 0 to 5 cm: SMAP Level 4, NASA NSIDC DAAC · 11 Oct 2026
Land surface temperature, day: VIIRS NOAA-20, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
Snow cover: VIIRS NOAA-20 NDSI, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
Snow mass (water in the snowpack): SMAP Level 4, NASA NSIDC DAAC · 11 Oct 2026
Sea ice concentration: GHRSST MUR, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
Underground soil moisture, monthly: GLDAS Noah, NASA GES DISC · May 2026
Water storage anomaly, monthly: GRACE-FO JPL mascons, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · July 2022
Sea surface temperature anomaly: GHRSST MUR25, NASA JPL PO.DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
True colour: VIIRS NOAA-20 corrected reflectance, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
Blue Marble relief and bathymetry: Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory · static
Baseline water stress (1979–2019 baseline): Water risk: WRI Aqueduct 4.0 (2023), World Resources Institute, CC BY 4.0; summarised to hexagons by GCRI · 5 Jul 2023

All 53 river stations, values and units (snapshot 14 Oct 2026)

Country	Discharge, m³/s	Against normal	Rain 30 days, mm	Soil moisture, m³/m³
BR	63,973	0.8 ×	4	0.136
CD	19,230	0.71 ×	49	0.266
EG	11,219	0.57 ×	0	0.135
SD	8,850	0.51 ×	0	0.109
NE	3,916	0.54 ×	86	0.074
NG	9,771	0.53 ×	228	0.155
MZ	1,857	1 ×	33	0.253
ZA	1,068	14.43 ×	77	0.126
BW	173	0.89 ×	4	0.052
SN	742	0.49 ×	128	0.222
GH	3,775	0.52 ×	184	0.274
MZ	171	15.55 ×	94	0.266
US	14,722	1.22 ×	3	0.188
US	1,577	1.25 ×	19	0.119
US	312	1.12 ×	35	0.197
US	2,857	0.96 ×	5	0.036
US	451	1.12 ×	0	0.086
CA	6,838	0.95 ×	67	0.345
CA	3,033	1.16 ×	98	0.243
CA	9,015	1.01 ×	36	0.263
US	10,398	1.21 ×	75	0.334
US	108	2.12 ×	47	0.253
VE	23,822	0.81 ×	74	0.259
CO	12,941	0.81 ×	174	0.446
AR	21,527	1.96 ×	142	0.266
UY	14,354	2.65 ×	91	0.176
BR	1,492	1.11 ×	1	0.185
NL	917	0.58 ×	34	0.253
RO	1,958	0.44 ×	19	0.272
FR	978	0.83 ×	45	0.233
DE	121	0.28 ×	69	0.153
IT	886	0.8 ×	15	0.268
RU	7,046	1.04 ×	22	0.151
RU	9,375	0.92 ×	26	0.287
RU	10,350	0.61 ×	68	0.322
RU	14,288	0.75 ×	77	0.334
RU	10,714	0.95 ×	25	0.129
IQ	216	1.05 ×	0	0.145
IQ	433	1.13 ×	1	0.151
TM	692	1.15 ×	1	0.109
PK	3,118	0.86 ×	2	0.114
IN	26,606	1.21 ×	146	0.337
BD	12,245	0.54 ×	89	0.373
IN	8.1	0.35 ×	301	0.321
MM	14,858	0.81 ×	192	0.295
KH	18,922	0.68 ×	273	0.377
TH	2,779	0.94 ×	393	0.253
VN	999	0.38 ×	225	0.232
CN	26,729	0.92 ×	67	0.214
CN	3,154	0.95 ×	39	0.278
CN	2,672	0.7 ×	66	0.27
AU	213	0.53 ×	22	0.128
AU	9.62	0.51 ×	18	0.106

Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · river discharge: Copernicus GloFAS, contains modified Copernicus Emergency Management Service information 2026 · snapshot 14 Oct 2026, not a flood warning.

01Coverage

The areas of water this platform takes on.

Water Nexus studies water as the system that couples every other system: catchments and aquifers, utilities and treatment, irrigation and hydropower, sanitation and health, river basins shared across borders. Its pages set out the science, the data, the methods and the decisions for each part of that system, with every value labelled by its evidence.

Area

Hydrological extremes

Drought and flood as one coupled problem: monitoring, forecasting, return periods and compound events.

Area

Catchments and basins

Water balance, land use and the rainfall-runoff response of catchments, from headwaters to delta.

Area

Groundwater and aquifers

Recharge, abstraction, depletion and quality in the storage that most water security silently depends on.

Area

Shared river basins

Transboundary flows, allocation rules, data sharing and the evidence that basin agreements rest on.

Area

Utilities and treatment

Supply, treatment, distribution and wastewater as critical infrastructure with its own failure modes.

Area

Drinking water and sanitation

Safe water and sanitation services, surveillance of quality and the health burden where services fail.

Area

Water, energy and food

Hydropower, cooling, irrigation and ecosystems competing for the same flow in the same season.

Area

Water science and methods

Hydrology, earth observation, sensing, extreme-value statistics and uncertainty, applied to water.

02Monitor

Basin stress monitor.

The screen a team would use to follow this field: its measures, states and decisions. Names are examples and values are illustrative.

Basin stress monitor: the screen’s structure, terms and states for Basin A.Example names and illustrative values; a design, not a record or a live system.

03Topics

The questions this field works on.

Topic

Catchment hydrology

Catchment hydrology and the complete water balance.

Topic

Groundwater and aquifers

Groundwater depletion, recharge, contamination and rights.

Topic

Drought and flood

Compound water extremes, forecasts and limits.

Topic

Drinking water and sanitation

Treatment, safety, infrastructure and equity.

Topic

Water utilities

Utility asset condition and continuity during outages.

Topic

Shared river basins

Transboundary evidence and institutions.

Topic

Water-energy interdependence

Pumping, cooling, hydropower and demand.

Topic

Water, food and ecosystem links

Irrigation, soil, wetlands and ecological services.

04Twin and cascade simulator

Model Water Nexus as a system. Run the cascade.

Assembled from the Nexus Standards area profile Water risk standards: the hazards it names, the systems and sectors that carry the loss, the controls that dampen it and the data that observe it. Choose the components, pick an initiating hazard and step through the cascade. The Map view places the run on an example geography with open data. Every coupling weight is a stated assumption you can change. A teaching model, not a forecast, an assessment or a certification. To model a place of your own choosing, open the full System Builder.

Hazards

Flash flood
Meteorological drought
Groundwater depletion
Dam failure
Debris flow (set off downstream)
Agricultural drought (set off downstream)
Hydrological drought (set off downstream)
Wildfire (set off downstream)
Peat and underground fire (set off downstream)
Forest dieback (set off downstream)
Water supply shortfall (set off downstream)
Acute food crisis (set off downstream)
Dust storm (set off downstream)
Land subsidence (set off downstream)
Saltwater intrusion (set off downstream)
River flood (set off downstream)
Mass displacement (set off downstream)
Amazon rainforest dieback (set off downstream)

Systems and couplings

Water risk standards
Energy risk standards Common driver and cascade
Food and agriculture risk standards Cascade
Health risk standards Cascade
Hydrometeorological hazard standards Shared hazard records

Controls

NS-0 Constitution and principles
NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue (grammar v0.2: domain, sector, region and environment segments)
NS-3 Risk record UNIs (grammar, legacy crosswalk, allocation authority)
NS-3b Dataset and product metadata profile (STAC, DCAT, PROV-O)
NS-9 Contextual UNIs (deployments, instances, programme instances)
NS-10 Policies and clauses (machine-readable obligations: definition, binding, evaluation and enforcement)
NS-11 Verification and monitoring (evidence, attestations, zero-trust conformance observation)
NRS-U28 Universe platform profile: Water Nexus
NRS-H61 Hazard family: Cascading failure (NHS-1 sys.cascade)
NRS-K42 Domain pack profile: Cross border basins (DOMAIN-042)
NRS-N1 Water risk and resilience
NRS-N7 Water-energy-food-health-biodiversity-infrastructure nexus coupling
NRS-H62 Hazard family: Compound and multi-hazard events (NHS-1 sys.compound)

Observation

USGS Water Data APIs (listed for reference)
GloFAS global flood forecasts and reanalysis (listed for reference)
GRACE/GRACE-FO terrestrial water storage mascons (listed for reference)
Aqueduct 4.0 Water Risk Atlas (listed for reference)
CHIRPS quasi-global gridded precipitation (listed for reference)
Level of water stress: freshwater withdrawal as a proportion of available freshwater resources
Proportion of transboundary basin area with an operational arrangement for water cooperation
Proportion of population using safely managed drinking water services
Number of disruptions to basic services attributed to disasters

Example geography

The Ganges and Brahmaputra Basin: 178 hexagonal cells
Surface water through cloud, 30 m (OPERA DSWx-S1 radar), NASA GIBS
Rain rate, last half hour (IMERG), NASA GIBS
Surface soil moisture (SMAP), NASA GIBS
Night lights tonight, outages (VIIRS Day/Night Band), NASA GIBS

05Overview

What Water Nexus does.

Water security is a population’s capacity to keep reliable access to enough water of acceptable quality, and to be protected from water-related disasters and pollution, in the working definition UN-Water uses. Water Nexus covers the parts of that system where risk concentrates: extremes, catchments, aquifers, shared basins, utilities, sanitation and the links to energy, food and ecosystems. Each topic page names its indicators, public data, methods and the authorities that decide.

Who it serves

Its community

Basin scientists; water utilities; municipal engineers; water agencies; WASH researchers.

How it works

Its methods

Hydrologic modelling; groundwater and water-quality monitoring; catchment GIS; scenario uncertainty.

What it produces

Its outputs

Watershed research briefs; public-safe basin maps; utility resilience case studies.

06Sector signature

The sector signature of Water Nexus.

The sectors Water Nexus touches and how strongly they depend on each other: what a study has to observe and model together.

Select corners · hover lines6 / 15 relations

Signature

Water and its partners

Water gives irrigation to food (0.8), cooling water and hydropower to energy (0.6) and environmental flows to biodiversity (0.6).

W · E · I · F · H · B

Sectors: 4 of 6
Relations: 6 of 15
Coupling: 0.43 share of total

Strongest relations in play

Food → Biodiversity · land conversion0.6
Water → Energy · cooling water and hydropower0.6
Water → Food · irrigation0.8
Water → Biodiversity · environmental flows0.6

Teaching values for a typical city-region, not measurements for any place. Coupling is the summed strength of the relations in play, as a share of all fifteen.

07GCRI’s mandate in water

What Water Nexus does, and what stays with water authorities.

Water Nexus is a research, development and policy platform. It studies how water systems work and fail, develops and tests methods, and helps national and basin institutions build the evidence and capability to manage water risk. It does not regulate water services, allocate water, license abstractions, fund or approve projects, or issue flood and drought warnings; those belong to ministries, regulators, basin organisations, utilities and hydrometeorological services.

Maps and model outputs on these pages are illustrative unless a page says otherwise: they show how evidence would be presented, not a forecast or an assessment of any place. Readiness for a next step is not authority to take it, and nothing here confers a status on any utility, basin or country. National agendas, data and decisions stay national.

08Methods and evidence

How Water Nexus is modelled, measured and tested.

The model, its assumptions, its data and its uncertainty, in the form a scientist or engineer would check. Structures follow published methods. The values drawn are illustrative, not findings.

System model

The couplings between the systems in Water Nexus: signs of influence, a reinforcing and a balancing loop, and cross-links where stress jumps.

Causal loop diagram from the page’s systems; signs show the direction of influence. Illustrative structure for a system dynamics or network model, not estimated couplings.

Uncertainty bands

How far the outlook for Water Nexus could spread, shown as ranges rather than a single line.

Central estimate: median of the ensemble
Ranges: likely and very likely, in IPCC calibrated language
Ensemble: members, scenarios and initial conditions stated
Read with: the sensitivity of the result to each input

Illustrative ensemble spread on an index scale; the form follows IPCC uncertainty guidance. Not a projection.

FAIR guiding principles · GO FAIR and FORCE11W3C PROV · World Wide Web ConsortiumGuidance on consistent treatment of uncertainties · IPCCCEOS Analysis Ready Data · Committee on Earth Observation Satellites

09Domains, reports and standards

How water evidence joins the other four domains and reaches Reports.

Coupling	Where it is examined	Series designed to carry it
Water and energy: cooling, hydropower, pumping	Water-energy interdependence with Energy Nexus	Scenario and Stress-Test
Water and food: irrigation, rain-fed yields, aquifers	Water, food and ecosystem links with Food Nexus	Country Systems Risk and Resilience
Water and health: safe supply, sanitation, waterborne disease	Drinking water and sanitation with Health Nexus	Country Quarterly
Water and nature: wetlands, environmental flows, catchments	Wetlands and freshwater with Biodiversity Nexus	Global Systems Risk and Resilience

Each water indicator series is designed to carry an NXS-GRX (canonical data, provenance and risk) record identifier and each dataset a metadata record under the proposed Nexus Standards, so that a figure in a report can be traced to the gauge, survey or model behind it.

10Contribute

What hydrologists, utilities and communities can add.

Data: gauge, well and water quality records, offered under the owner’s terms.
Cases: droughts, floods or outages documented step by step with sources.
Methods: replications, critiques and validation of models used on these pages.
Corrections: anything wrong or out of date, through corrections.

11The problem

Water failures rarely stay inside the water sector.

A river basin is a single physical system, but it is managed by many hands: farmers and irrigation agencies, cities and utilities, hydropower and thermal plant operators, environmental regulators and, often, more than one country.

Physical

One hydrological system

Rainfall, snow, soil, rivers and aquifers are linked; abstraction or land change in one place alters flow and quality elsewhere.

Infrastructure

Shared dependencies

Treatment, pumping and distribution depend on electricity, chemicals, data and staff, each with its own failure modes.

Society

Unequal exposure

Households without safe supply or sanitation, and communities on floodplains, bear the first and largest consequences.

Precipitation becomes soil moisture, runoff, river flow and groundwater recharge through processes that hydrologists can describe but not fully observe. Every user downstream inherits the decisions and the uncertainty upstream. When a drought lowers reservoirs and aquifers, it reduces drinking water reserves, constrains the cooling water thermal power stations need, cuts hydropower output, stresses irrigated agriculture and degrades the wetlands that buffer floods and filter pollution.

Floods cascade in the other direction. Intense rainfall overwhelms drainage, inundates treatment works and pumping stations, mobilises contaminants and interrupts electricity, which in turn stops pumps and treatment. Waterborne disease follows when sanitation fails. Because these systems are tightly coupled and designed against a historical climate that is changing, failures can propagate faster than the institutions responsible for each part can coordinate.

The science problem is therefore not only how much water there is, but how stress moves through the services, economies and ecosystems that depend on it, and how confident anyone can be about it.

12What the platform does

Evidence for the people who run and govern water systems.

Water Nexus produces research that a utility engineer, a basin scientist and a public servant can each use and check. Its methods are hydrologic modelling, groundwater and water-quality monitoring, catchment geographic information systems (GIS) and scenario analysis with stated uncertainty.

Audience

Who it serves

Basin scientists, water utilities, municipal engineers, water agencies and WASH researchers, with the universities and field teams that support them.

Methods

How it works

Water balance and hydrologic models, monitoring networks, remote sensing, spatial analysis and uncertainty quantification, each documented with its limits.

Outputs

What it is designed to publish

Watershed research briefs, public-safe basin maps and utility resilience case studies, released through reviewed publication.

Water Nexus does science. It does not regulate water services, allocate water rights, certify utilities or approve projects; its findings carry their methods and uncertainty.

13Foundations and counterparts

Grounded in STEM, connected across the Consortium.

Water Nexus is the steward platform for two nodes of the STEM Commons: hydrology and water science and water and environmental engineering. It also applies Earth observation, geospatial information systems, sensors and observation networks, forecasting and time-series analysis, extreme value analysis, spatial statistics and uncertainty quantification; see the STEM foundation of Water Nexus.

Each institution keeps its own mandate: GCRI does the science, GRF governs and convenes, GRA builds shared financial-sector understanding. The full list is on counterparts across the Consortium, and the field gateway is Water.

14Grounding

Built on named science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Every claim on Water Nexus rests on methods with a canonical page in the STEM Commons, so readers can see what a finding depends on and where its limits lie.

Hydrology and water scienceWater and environmental engineeringGeospatial information systemsEarth observation and remote sensingSensors, IoT and observation networksForecasting and time-series analysisExtreme value theory and tail riskSpatial statistics and geostatisticsUncertainty quantification and model validation

See the STEM foundation of Water Nexus

15Cycle

How work moves in this field.

A question becomes evidence, a governed build, an organised community, a controlled test, a reviewed publication and, finally, a decision taken by the competent authority under its own rules.

Question Universe National, regional or institutional priority. Question in Water Nexus
Evidence Foundry STEM foundation of the platform. Evidence in Water Nexus
Build Foundry Foundry. Build in Water Nexus
Organise Universe Nexus ecosystem. Organise in Water Nexus
Test Universe Universe (independent site). Test in Water Nexus
Publish Reports Reports. Publish in Water Nexus
Decide Competent authority Competent authorities and institutions, through NXS-RLS (participants, agreements and handoffs). Decide in Water Nexus
Renew Universe Corrections and the next annual agenda. Renew in Water Nexus

Each step of the cycle in the pillar it runs in; the decision stays with the competent authority, outside the programme.

Labs
Foundry
Universe
Nexus Standards
Reports
Risk Academy
Competent authority (outside the programme)

16Six pillars

How this works across the six pillars.

Water Nexus works through six pillars of one annual programme, led by the Nexus Consortium, with GCRI, GRF and GRA each contributing in its role: explore, experiment and prototype in Labs, build, simulate and prepare in Foundry, convene and test in Universe, codify, correct and apply in Nexus Standards, publish in every format in Reports, teach in the open in Risk Academy.

Select pillars · hover lines18 / 18 handoffs

Route

The whole programme

Every pillar hands its work to another; together they close the year’s feedback loops.

L · F · U · S · R · A

Pillars: 6 of 6
Handoffs: 18 of 18
Loops: 17 closed

Handoffs in play

F01Universe → Foundry · Admitted mission becomes a cycle project with a decision caseReadiness preparation
F02Foundry → Universe · Core Build Report and go or no-go evidenceControlled build
F03Foundry → Reports · Sealed observations and indicator series behind a profileCloseout
F04Universe → Reports · After-action and scenario findings for chapters 10 and 13After-action review

and 14 more

F01 to F14 are the recorded handoffs of the programme year, each with the artefact that moves and its phase; R1, R2, R3 and R4 carry work around the ring. A loop counts when every pillar on it is selected. Every pillar is led by the Nexus Consortium.

LabsWhere questions become experiments and prototypes: new methods, data and tools are tried in the open, with their limits on record, before the Foundry builds them, under the Nexus Consortium.Labs
FoundryWhere methods, data and models become reproducible builds, each run with its inputs, version and limits on record.Water Nexus in Foundry Foundry
UniverseWhere a build is tested under controlled conditions with independent evaluators, so a method’s skill is measured, not assumed.Water Nexus in Universe universe.nexus
Nexus StandardsWhere methods, identifiers and data schemas are codified in the open and corrected when a test finds a fault.Water and Food Systems in Standards nexustandards.com
ReportsWhere findings are published with their method, uncertainty and evidence class, and corrected as new versions.Water Nexus in Reports Reports
Risk AcademyWhere methods and systems are taught on real data and real places, by working the case, on Risk Academy.Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences in Academy risksacademy.com

17Frameworks

What the work is read against.

The platform does not set standards. It reads its evidence against the frameworks that competent bodies have adopted, so a finding can be placed where a decision-maker already works.

Framework or standard	Body	What it sets
Sustainable Development Goal 6 and its indicators	United Nations	Targets and indicator definitions for drinking water, sanitation, water quality, efficiency, scarcity and integrated management
WHO Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality	World Health Organization	Health-based targets, water safety plans and surveillance for drinking-water supplies
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction	UNDRR	Priorities and targets for understanding, governing, investing in and preparing for disaster risk, floods and droughts included
UN Watercourses Convention and the UNECE Water Convention	United Nations, UNECE	Principles of equitable and reasonable use, no significant harm and cooperation on shared watercourses
WMO Guidelines on hydrological and drought monitoring	World Meteorological Organization	Standard practice for gauging, indices such as the standardised precipitation index, and early warning
ISO 24510 to 24512	International Organization for Standardization	Service assessment and management of drinking-water and wastewater utilities
Integrated Water Resources Management	Global Water Partnership, UN-Water	Coordinated development of water, land and related resources across sectors and levels
Paris Agreement adaptation reporting	UNFCCC	National adaptation plans and reporting in which water risks are a central component

18Consortium

The same field, seen three ways.

GCRI studies a field as science, GRF governs it and GRA builds shared financial understanding of it. Water Nexus links to its counterparts so that work on one side is visible on the others.

19Sources

Where this page’s references lead.

The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.

21Connected

Where this page leads across the Consortium.

22Questions

Questions and answers.

Who publishes Water Nexus?

The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation (GCRI) publishes Water Nexus and is responsible for what it publishes. GCRI is a research, development and policy institution. It is not a regulator, and it does not certify, license or approve; its findings carry their methods and uncertainty.

Is Water Nexus active?

Water Nexus is an established platform of The Global Centre for Risk and Innovation. Information and enquiries are open today. 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.

How can I contribute?

Start with the participation paths or write to the contact form. An enquiry receives a reference; it does not create membership, a role or an assignment.

Where are findings published?

Reviewed outputs appear on the publications page, and contributions to the Reports series are listed on Publish in Reports.

Which values on this platform are real?

Indicator names, units, sources, methods and frameworks are real. Levels in figures and canvases are examples in a design. A programme replaces them with labelled evidence it owns.

How do I report an error?

Use corrections and concerns, or write to the integrity concern form. A correction is recorded as a new version, never a silent edit.

Is Water Nexus a water regulator or utility?

No. It studies water systems and publishes evidence with its methods and uncertainty. Water allocation, service standards and licensing remain with the competent public authorities and operators.

Can a utility share operational data?

A utility can discuss a data contribution by writing to the research collaboration form. Terms, confidentiality and permitted uses are agreed in writing before any data is received, and security-sensitive asset detail is never published.

ReportsContribute evidence from this

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium’s quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

GCRIWater NexusGlobal Sector Risk and ResilienceCountry Systems Risk and ResilienceObservatory Signal

Never send personal data, sensitive infrastructure detail or anything you have no right to share. A contribution is reviewed before use; sending it confers no authorship or editorial rights, and sponsorship never buys a finding.

How it works

How Water Nexus works.

Choose a view and press Play to follow the platform’s process, its programme year, the standards it applies and how its findings are published. The outline shows how the work is designed to run, not the status of any decision.

Water Nexus

How Water Nexus works

Platforms · Programme year · Standards · Reports

A platform joins a field to named methods, labelled evidence and the outputs it publishes, without becoming the authority it serves.

01 Scope
1. 01Field and familiesStart · The platform leadThe home states the field, its families and who it serves.
2. 02Topic dossiersRecord · Platform authorsTopics explain the subject with labelled evidence.
02 Evidence
1. 03Evidence labelsRecord · GCRIEach value is labelled: observed, published statistics, estimated, modelled, scenario or unknown.
2. 04MethodsStep · Method ownersMethods come from the STEM Commons, each with one canonical page.
03 Work
1. 05Scenarios on the systemsModel · Foundry pillarScenarios run on the Nexus systems, labelled as scenario.
2. 06Standards that applyRecord · Nexus StandardsThe platform names the standards that apply. A validator report is evidence for review.
04 Publish
1. 07EditionsRecord · ReportsFindings are published through Reports with their limits.
2. 08Authority decidesOutcome · The competent authorityDecisions and execution stay with the government, operator or licensed institution.

Water Nexus home · Platforms · Shared methodsAn outline of how the work is designed to run; it does not report the status of any decision or record.

Take part

Take part in Water Nexus.

Start from who you are. Answer an open call. Or form and lead a competence cell on the Water Nexus platform.

Route

National institutions

Ministries, statistics offices and agencies: a national desk and chapter, and a seat in the working groups. National chapters

Route

Sectors and professions

Operators, regulators, banks, insurers and professional bodies whose work touches Water Nexus. Participate

Route

Learning

Courses and practice, with a record of every course completed. Free to study. Open learning

Route

Standards

Draft, review and adopt the methods and data standards with the working groups. Working groups

Route

Communities and research

Universities, civil society and individual experts: projects, data and review. Write to the team

Open call	Seeks	Closes
Founding call for experts to the working groups CALL-FOUNDING-EXPERTS	expert, editor, chair	2026-12-15
Open nomination for the three independent expert seats of the Global Standards Council CALL-GSC-IND	council-member	2026-12-01
Nominations of interim regional members (applies only if the transitional provision is decided) CALL-GSC-REG	council-member	2026-12-15
Review of the wave-1 risk core outlines (C1, C2, C3, C4, C8, C10, C11) CALL-REVIEW-WAVE1	contributor	2027-01-31
Experts for the core standards of risk science: uncertainty and evidence grading, scales, structured expert judgement, tolerability, extremes and compound events, catastrophic and existential risk, ethics and equity, units and measurement (NRS-C17 to NRS-C24) CALL-CORE-SCIENCE	expert, editor, chair	2027-01-31
Independent reviewers for the families of the hazard atlas, three from at least two regions for each family (NHS2-R19), priority families first CALL-ATLAS-REVIEW	expert	2027-03-31
Members of the interim Frontier Safety Review Panel and red-team reviewers (biosafety and biosecurity, AI safety and security, critical-infrastructure security); applications treated in confidence CALL-FRONTIER-SAFETY-REVIEW	expert	2026-11-30
Experts in ontology, metrology, software verification and conformity assessment for the requirement register, the NHS-2 machine representation, the conformance test suites and the conformity assessment scheme CALL-CONFORMANCE-ONTOLOGY	expert, editor	2027-01-31

Calls past their closing date are hidden automatically. Every call, proposal and route: open areas and calls.

The Global Risks Index

Every figure on this page is indexed: hazards, climate, conflict, the world.

The Index is the Consortium’s indexing system for risk data. Every indicator, hazard, series and country profile carries its Nexus Standards identifier, its source and its licence, so what this page shows can be traced, corrected and reused.

01 · Sources205 registered sourcesEvery value keeps its source and licence; withheld values are counted.Data and licences
02 · Nexus StandardsNIS-1 and NHS-1451 indicators, 905 hazards; every record carries a UNI.Nexus Standards
03 · The Index54 series, 195 country profilesComputed on the standards; no value is published until an edition is released.The Global Risks Index
04 · This pageWater NexusMaps, figures and feeds read the Index in the context of hazards, climate, conflict.Public API

Sources205registered, each with its licence

Indicators451NIS-1, 106 composites, 20 domain indices

Hazards905NHS-1, crosswalked to UNDRR-ISC HIPs

Series54global, sector, strategic, technology, thematic

Country profiles195one site per country

Series in this context hazards, climate, conflict

GLBGlobal SystemsThe state of interdependent global risk: the twenty domain indices aggregated to the world, the five core systems (water, energy, food, health, biodiversity) and their couplings, the global tail register and the gap…NXS-GRX-AR-000002Hazards · Climate · Conflict
THDisaster Risk Intelligence (DRI)Signals, observations, event streams, geospatial layers and scenario packs turned into structured risk intelligence for preparedness and planning.NXS-GRX-AR-000111Hazards · Climate · Conflict
GSGlobal CitiesUrban exposure, heat, flooding, informal settlement, service dependency and the economic weight of cities at risk.NXS-GRX-AR-000068Hazards · Infrastructure · Climate
GSGlobal ClimateChronic and acute physical climate hazard, transition exposure, adaptation gaps and scenario pathways to 2030, 2050 and 2100.NXS-GRX-AR-000065Climate · Hazards · Finance

All 54 series · The 20 domain indices

Country profiles the world

All 195 country profiles

Every country profile carries the source and licence of each value. Correct a value or reply

Hazard domains NHS-1

Atmosphere and weatherNXS-GRX-AR-000135
Solid EarthNXS-GRX-AR-000138
Systemic and compound eventsNXS-GRX-AR-000148

Geodata and API open

Open layers on an equal-area hexagon grid, shown as densities per km² or as symbols: People · GHSL 2025People · WorldPop 2025Built-up areaPortsAirportsRoadsRailwaysRivers and lake centrelines

Risk Observatory mapopen

/api/v1/public/grix · https://nexustandards.com/uni/{uni}
Developers · Data · Made with Natural Earth, Public domain; GHSL and WorldPop, CC BY 4.0

Snapshot of the Index registries pinned 2026-10-23 · 22c6eed. Research and risk-analytics information: not a rating, an official classification, a warning, a benchmark or advice.

Water Nexus

Bring a method, a dataset or a question.

Information and enquiries are open today. 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.

Propose a method See all contact routes

Legal

Legal documents.

Maps, data and figures on this site are shown for context and general information. They are not advice, forecasts or warnings; the limits of the information are set out in the Disclaimers and Data Notices.

Water Nexus

The areas of water this platform takes on.

Hydrological extremes

Catchments and basins

Groundwater and aquifers

Shared river basins

Utilities and treatment

Drinking water and sanitation

Water, energy and food

Water science and methods

Basin stress monitor.

The questions this field works on.

Catchment hydrology

Groundwater and aquifers

Drought and flood

Drinking water and sanitation

Water utilities

Shared river basins

Water-energy interdependence

Water, food and ecosystem links

Model Water Nexus as a system. Run the cascade.

What Water Nexus does.

Its community

Its methods

Its outputs

The sector signature of Water Nexus.

Strongest relations in play

What Water Nexus does, and what stays with water authorities.

How Water Nexus is modelled, measured and tested.

System model

Uncertainty bands

How water evidence joins the other four domains and reaches Reports.

What hydrologists, utilities and communities can add.

Water failures rarely stay inside the water sector.

One hydrological system

Shared dependencies

Unequal exposure

Evidence for the people who run and govern water systems.

Who it serves

How it works

What it is designed to publish

Grounded in STEM, connected across the Consortium.

Built on named science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

How work moves in this field.

How this works across the six pillars.

Handoffs in play

What the work is read against.

The same field, seen three ways.

Where this page’s references lead.

Pages in Water Nexus.

Mandate and publisher

Field overview

Research and evidence

Innovation and practical technology

Programmes and projects

Data and technical methods

Specialist community

Learning and professional development

Events and technical dialogues

Research and publications

Participation paths

Contact the specialist team

Trust, rights and status

STEM foundation of Water Nexus

How work moves in this field

Build in Foundry

Test in Universe

Publish in Reports

The same field across the Consortium

Topics

Where this page leads across the Consortium.

Questions and answers.

Contribute evidence from this page.

How Water Nexus works.

How Water Nexus works

01 Scope

02 Evidence

03 Work

04 Publish

Take part in Water Nexus.