Aim and overview
Extreme weather events can exacerbate inequalities, and lead to famine, death, and disease. Industrialisation, population growth, and urbanisation are increasing chemical and microbial water pollution, threatening public health and the environment. Water quality, water resource, and hydrological risk are closely related and interconnected, for example, water pollution must be tackled at source and treated to protect public health and the environment, thereby increasing water availability. The Hub’s aim was to carry out research across all three aspects in an integrated, coherent manner, and develop a framework for assessing risks and interactions consistently, in order to prioritise interventions and understand impacts on other parts of the system.
Key questions
- Where do the gaps in water data exist?
- What data do we need in order to understand catchment responses, and understand water availability across scales?
- How do we quantify and predict fluxes to provide a concrete link between sources (e.g., rainfall, pollutants) and possible exposure and impacts (e.g., flooding, disease) within a catchment?
- How do we evaluate policy and technical interventions to safeguard water resources and people?
- How do we integrate data, understanding, and contextual information (e.g., water infrastructure, land use, industrial activity, population density) to provide risk information to local communities and decision makers?
- How may risks to water scarcity, quality, and other indicators of water security change under different scenarios?
More to come on our key findings.
Flowrate data collection in Malaysia
