AQUASTAT - Disambiguation of water statistics

Kohli, A.;Frenken, K.;Spottorno, C.

AQUASTAT - Disambiguation of water statistics

Year of publication 2012

Pages 7p.

Author Kohli, A.;Frenken, K.;Spottorno, C.

Publisher FAO ;

Product type Document

Category Technical report

Series title FAO AQUASTAT Report

Edition 1

Full item page

Synopsis (short abstract) Water statistics at all levels are crucial for sustainable development and management. They shape policy, decision - making, and act as a proxy for development. Integrated Water Resource s Management (IWRM) plans around basic informati on on water resources and use. Unfortunately, the nomenclature surrounding water information is often confusing and gives rise to different interpretations and thus confusion. When discussing the way in which renewable water res ources are utilized, the ter ms water use , usage , withdrawal , consumption, abstraction, extraction, utilization, supply and demand are often used without clearly stating what is meant. This note attempts to shed light on how the AQUASTAT programme defines these terms, although readers should be aware that these definitions are not globally standardized. Harmonization efforts within the UN system are ongoing.

Language English

Also available in:

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

Document

Technical report

AQUASTAT - Cooling water for energy generation and its impact on national-level water statistics 2011

Also available in:

No results found.
Document

Technical report

AQUASTAT - Municipal and industrial water withdrawal modelling for the years 2000 and 2005 using statistical methods 2011

Also available in:

No results found.
Document

Other document

Key water resources statistics in AQUASTAT
FAO’s Global Information System on Water and Agriculture
2005

Also available in:

No results found.

This article describes the methodology used by AQUASTAT to assess natural and actual freshwater resources for the world by country. It deals with renewable water resources and concentrates mainly on the physical assessment of internal and external resources. It presents a picture of the state of the world’s water resources that is not only the natural state but also the current situation, taking into account existing uses of water and their implications for countries sharing river basins. Much remains to be done in order to obtain sound statistics on water resources, and particularly standardized data sets, at global level. This article presents some reflections in this sense. Submitted for IWG-Env, International Work Session on Water Statistics, Vienna, June 20-22 2005.