Global Water Stress Indices: An example of their industrial usage / Globala vattenstressindex: Ett exempel på industriell tillämpning
The article presents a study assigned by SCA about water stress assessments on basin level for sites where SCA have pulp- and paper mills, paper mills or factories. Four tools were evaluated with the aim to find indices that measure water stress, i.e. lack of water of good enough quality for humans and the ecosystem. Water indices, developed through research, become more accessible when they are in water tools, developed by non-governmental organisations, corporations or financial institutions. Two indices in WBCSD’s Global Water Tool and three indices in WWF-DEG’s Water Risk Filter totally gave each site five assessments. The study included 96 sites. Both tools gave assessments without showing confidence intervals for the results that are presented. More local knowledge would be required to assess how well the results correspond to reality. That is the case for all indices that are measured on the level of basins or countries.