Global relative rate of natural capital depletion of water

Depletion of water was defined as a decrease in the quantity and quality of water resources, which affects the delivery of ecosystem services such as freshwater provision and climate regulation.

Datasets from the WRI Aqueduct 2019, already included within the mapping function of ENCORE, were determined to be suitable indicators of depletion of water stocks. The World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct 3.0 (WRI Aqueduct 2019) provides global data on 13 water risk indicators, based on hydrological modelling, remotely sensed data, and published datasets. For water quantity, the WRI Aqueduct 2019 Baseline Water Stress layer depicts the ratio of total water withdrawals (including domestic, industrial, irrigation, and livestock consumptive and non-consumptive uses) to available renewable surface and groundwater supplies. For water quality, a sum of the WRI Aqueduct 2019 Unimproved/no sanitations and Coastal eutrophication potential was used to capture the different pollution sources of freshwater from domestic and economic activities. As outlined in the WRI Aqueduct tool:

Coastal Eutrophication Potential measures “the potential for riverine loadings of nitrogen, phosphorus and silica to stimulate harmful algal blooms in coastal waters”.
Unimproved/no sanitation measures “the percentage of the population using pit latrines without a slab or platform, hanging/bucket latrines, or directly disposing human waste in fields, forests, bushes, open bodies of water, beaches, other open spaces, or with solid waste”