Nga Hoang Thanh (ELP 2022) | Water Stewardship Program Manager, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF),Vietnam

Water makes up 70% of human body weight. Similarly, 71% of earth’s surface is water covered. Both earth and humans are primarily water. Of this huge water stock on Earth, 96.5% is in oceans, and 1.74% is kept in ice caps, glaciers and permanent snow. Only around 1% is freshwater that is accessible for humans to use. The average person uses around 140 litres of water a day. Today, nearly two billion people live in areas at risk from severe water scarcity, and the water crisis is one of the greatest risks to the global economy.

Ensuring a water-secure future is our shared responsibility. There have been well adopted approaches for water resource management. They include Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) applicable at the river basin level, Water Stewardship for agriculture and industry water users, Water Risk Filter for business and investors to assess and evaluate local water-related risks. 

The Global Water Partnership is a global action network with over 3,000 Partner organizations in 179 countries. The network has 69 accredited Country Water Partnerships and 13 Regional Water Partnerships. In many river basins and countries, the Water Partnership platform is set up to engage public private stakeholders and collectively address water challenges via resource mobilization, technology transfer, policy advocacy, monitoring etc. The US, Germany, the UK, Korea, Australia, and the Netherlands have water partnership platforms that have been highly active, to roll out effective working agendas.

WWF adopts the 5-steps water stewardship ladder to guide our interventions for water conservation impacts. The ladder starts with raising awareness of water risk for targeted stakeholders; then the second step is the baseline assessment of water footprint, which provides companies with the knowledge of their impact on water resources. Building on water awareness and footprint knowledge, we encourage companies to take action for water conservation at their sites. Steps 4 and 5 move beyond individual water users to facilitate collective actions for basin water governance and advocacy toward government policy. 

Figure 1: WWF Water Stewardship Approach linked to SDG

The WWF Water Risk Filter tool provided scores of water risks in 3 categories: Physical Risk, Regulatory Risk, and Reputational Risk. Take Viet Nam for example, the country map shown in Figure 2 indicates water risk level in medium color, with the country’s two biggest river basins (Red river and Mekong river) at a higher risk level. 

Figure 2: WWF Water Risk Filter Tool

The country ranks #148 on overall water risk, out of more than 210 countries. This risk level precisely reflects the fact that although Viet Nam has a pretty large river surface area (more than 1 million km2), only 32% of its water volume is generated inside the country border. The largest river Mekong has 89% of its water generated in other countries upstream. Specifically, the reputational risk is much higher on the global ranking, at #196. Factors to reputational risk are cultural diversity, biodiversity importance, media scrutiny and conflict. The complexity relating to hydro dams of countries upstream and downstream along the Mekong rivers continues to deteriorate the river geoscape, sediment load, and freshwater habitats migration. Due to the strategic position of the Greater Mekong region to the world economy and stability, global media has been highly active in monitoring any developments and setbacks relating to the cooperation for the sustainability of the mighty Mekong river. 

Figure 3: Viet Nam water risk profile

The recent global pandemic has further amplified the necessity for hygienic water and sanitation and its importance in infectious disease prevention. The latest escalation of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine has put affected communities without basic survival supplies. Access to water, food, housing, and energy is a fundamental human right that needs urgent interventions from governments and public institutions. In response to these new challenges, organizations have updated the water strategy to integrate inclusiveness, voice, and fairness as some of its principles. Vulnerable, poor communities should be prioritized to join and voice their water needs in dialogue with public and private stakeholders. 

Another important adjustment is noted in the feedback of the popular water concept: Net Positive Water. Companies monitor water metrics within their sites and consider ‘Net Positive’ when water metrics (water input-water output) shows that they do more good than bad. WWF recently recommend that the net positive notion does not address core water governance challenges and that private companies should consider water actions beyond their own sites to resolve basin water risks.

Water, due to its fluid and transformative nature, is a highly complex resource. Hence, tackling water challenges needs a shared voice, determination, and collective actions from all partners who depend on and have an impact on water.