GRIS - Groundwater Impact Scan – launched

Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO.nl) administers many projects in the international domain (aiddata.rvo.nl (https://aiddata.rvo.nl/)). Many of these projects rely on groundwater sources, especially the agriculture projects. RVO wants to stimulate discussions on incorporating groundwater assessments in the business approaches and to contribute to relevant awareness raising.

Under the support programme of the Sustainable Water Fund (FDW), Acacia Water has been contracted by RVO.nl to develop a Rapid Assessment Groundwater Impact Scan (GRIS) in an online tool.

This tool is a first but very practical step to gain insight into groundwater-related risks at regional scale. It can be applied to any project in which groundwater will play a role. It’s thus explicitly not only meant for the private sector but also for public sector agents who can use the tool for their plan making including plans on water allocation and water management. With a single click on the world map and  answering a survey, a risk indicator is given for the proposed project.

The tool has reached its pilot stage. GRIS is currently based on global datasets, and though every effort has been made to use the best-available datasets, they may contain inaccuracies. Therefore, we would like to invite you to try the tool and give us feedback by using the feedback form embedded in the tool. We asked a limited amount of public and private organizations to share their feedback with Acacia Water and RVO.nl during 2019. We will use the feedback to develop an improved version of the tool to be widely released in January 2020.

Worldwide the agriculture sector consumes approximately 70% of fresh water sources. Industry and household consumption are good for 15% each. Over half of the freshwater supply is being extracted from groundwater sources. Fresh water is becoming a scarce resource. As a result, water availability assessments are becoming more important every day for business sustainability in both agriculture and industry. But important groundwater data is lacking and risk assessments based on water availability are not easy to make. Hence, groundwater assessments in relation to business sustainability is often not carried out.

With the GRIS tool, gris.acaciadata.com (https://gris.acaciadata.com/), a first step is made to incorporate groundwater assessments in the business approaches.

For more information, contact our colleages Theo Kleinendorst (mailto:theo.kleinendorst@acaciawater.com) and Anouk Gevaert (mailto:anouk.gevaert@acaciawater.com).