Water management decisions-World Water Week

Sarah Fletcher, Senior Research Analyst at IHS, will be speaking at the 23rd Annual World Water Week, taking place September 2-6 in Stockholm Sweden.

World Water Week is the preeminent water conference for academic research on water. Research abstracts are submitted for review and approval by a diverse and accomplished committee of water researchers from around the world. Only a handful of abstracts are selected from several thousand submissions - speakers cannot purchase presentation slots in an effort to protect the quality of research submitted. So Sarah's selection is wonderful recognition of the great research that our new water practice is doing.

This year, over 2,500 delegates from 260 organizations representing 130 countries are expected at the conference to present research around the theme of Water Cooperation - Building Partnerships. In all there are 100 sessions that will explore topics such as private-sector stewardship, water economics, climate change and the water-energy-food nexus.

Historically, much of the research presented at this conference was focused on policy, and either prepared by or directed to governments and NGOs with less focus on the role that MNCs and industrial water users can play in solving global water challenges. The audience most certainly reflects a very policy-oriented crowd and content theme. However, this year's theme seeks to expand the scope of who can help solve these challenges by involving the private sector more directly. The theme is a perfect fit for Sarah's presentation, "Collaborating for Sustainable Water Management in the Oil and Gas Industry," which is part of an entire workshop on linking science, practice and policy under increasing complexity and uncertainty.

Some other related sessions at the conference include:

• Public-Private-Partnerships: Cooperation for Water Management
• Private Sector: Taking Collaboration to the Next Level
• Groundwater Information Reliability and International Cooperation
• Water Stewardship in the Oil and Gas Industry

The humanitarian issues surrounding water are well understood - much research has been done by universities and NGOs on how dry areas are getting drier and water scarcity is intensifying. But what is often overlooked is the reality that corporations can play a pivotal role in redefining the way water is used and conserved, with significant opportunities for the technologies that help industrial water users optimize their use.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the oil and gas industry. Many readers of this blog can relate to the fact that water poses significant logistical challenges to operators in unconventional oil and gas plays. The growth in unconventional extraction has drastically increased the volume of water sourced, managed and disposed by the oil and gas industry. In deciding on what water management strategies to implement, there are complex and uncertain financial, operational and regulatory incentives. These incentives often do not encourage water management choices that minimize water consumption.

For her presentation at World Water Week, Sarah is developing a decision analysis tool to model the effect of varying industry management practices and regulatory policies on water consumption by the oil and gas industry. If policymakers accurately understand how water management choices are made by industrial water users, they are more likely to enact policies that improve water management and conservation. This tool should facilitate cooperation between industry and policymakers in accordance with the mission of WWW to foster collaboration through research. The tool will be available for consulting projects beginning in September.

The World Water Week organizers believe that high-quality research should be the foundation for effective cooperation between all stakeholders - in both public and private sectors. According to WWW, "Knowledge must be shared based on context and needs of those involved to develop evidence-based policy, make decisions and raise awareness. Science-policy gaps are common, often with too much 'science-push' and insufficient attention to 'policy pull'."

Sarah will blog from World Water Week during the first week of September so check this space.

This article was published by S&P Global Commodity Insights and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.