The Infrastructure Risk focus on third-party provider water supply infrastructure related to water availability. Onsite infrastructure is addressed separately through the site Questionnaire.
Infrastructure risk is associated with reduced water infrastructure reliability or resilience due to natural or human events.
The Infrastructure Risk Score is calculated by averaging the scores of 3 indicators that measure different aspects of infrastructure challenges. These indicators are scored on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 represents the lowest risk and 5 the highest. These indicators are:
The National budget for water resources infrastructure indicator is based on SDG 6.5.1. It measures the national budget for water resources infrastructure (investment and recurrent costs) on a country level.
Allocations of funding for water resources infrastructure take into account funds from government budgets and any co-funding (loans or grants) from other sources such as banks or donors.
Infrastructure includes “hard” and “soft” structures. “Hard” structures are dams, canals, pumping stations, flood control, treatment works, etc. “Soft” structures include environmental measures such as catchment management, sustainable drainage systems, and others. This indicator does not include infrastructure for drinking water supply or sanitation services.
The Non-revenue water (NRW) indicator measures, in liters/capita/day, the amount of water not reaching the consumers. Non-revenue water is not only a financial concern for utilities but can also be an obstacle to providing a reliable service at an affordable price. For businesses, this means a potential risk of increased water costs and water supply interruptions. It can also be an indicator of the amount of water that is leaking and the potential for a more significant main break or contamination issue.
The methodology used for this indicator is based on the work of Liemberger & Wyatt. The data utilized comes from the World Bank, Eurostat, and other sources.
This indicator assesses the average age of dams and the related water facilities in a given country. This includes infrastructure for water supply, irrigation, hydroelectric generation, flood control, navigation, recreation, and other purposes.
The data includes more than 11,000 facilities around the world and more than 70,000 facilities in the United States. Aging infrastructure is associated with decreased safety, service interruptions, and increased CAPEX for maintenance.
This creates a risk for businesses of water supply interruptions, floods, increased water fees, and increased costs for the transportation of goods and raw materials. Insufficient capacities in terms of water storage, hydropower production, and flood mitigation could dampen economic growth. The useful life of dams and reservoirs typically varies from 50 to 80 years.
The results are estimated based on a normal distribution of the age of dams for each country. The ages located in the 68% percentile are averaged to give the final result.
