Around the world there are tremendous challenges surrounding the use and management of water resources. The Alliance for Water Stewardship (AWS) was established in 2008 to promote the stewardship of water resources, and in 2014 they released the first International Water Stewardship Standard. It is premised on the idea that improved management of water resources must be context driven, i.e. considering site (farm) and catchment level issues and solutions.
In the wake of the advancements in the development of the System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA), AWS saw an opportunity to use an internationally comparable measurement approach as the basis for measurement and transparency in the implementation of the AWS Standard. To this end, AWS engaged IDEEA Group to describe the potential ways in which the SEEA could be applied in the six steps of the AWS Standard.
This introductory report outlines a variety of ways in which the SEEA could support implementation including; ensuring coherence of data across scales and enabling site; catchment and administrative level narratives can be aligned; and providing a common language for the communication and framing of management responses and outcomes. The report identifies seven key benefits from linking the AWS Standard and the SEEA and recommends undertaking case studies to demonstrate the potential opportunities for firms, catchment managers, industry and sector leaders.
The report was released at the AWS Global Water Stewardship Forum in Edinburgh in October 2017, and is serving as the basis for commencing pilot studies.