# Water Risk Filter

WWF — version 3.0.1

## Description

This dataset contains water risk indicators for terrestrial and freshwater areas, with global coverage at the sub-basin scale (polygons). Sixty-six indicators are aggregated into seventeen risk categories and three risk types: physical risk, regulatory deficiency risk, and reputational risk.

Assessment units follow HydroBASINS Level 7, with units that cross national borders sub-divided along national boundaries. World Bank boundaries are used for island nations not covered by HydroBASINS. Marine and coastal units are not included.

Physical risk categories cover water availability, drought, flooding, water quality, water accessibility, and ecosystem service status. Regulatory deficiency risk categories cover application, scoping, rights, access and entitlements, institutions and governance, management instruments, subnational water law, offences and penalties, and implementation risk. Reputational risk categories cover pressures on freshwater, environmental factors, and socio-economic factors.

Physical and reputational risk values are weighted composites of risk categories, where weights vary by site activity. Values are provided for 26 site activities, one of which represents a state of nature with no activity. Regulatory deficiency risk is industry-agnostic and does not vary by activity.

## Summary

- **ID:** 5150fe5d-4e8b-433b-80b8-805a82cf18b8
- **Type:** Vector
- **CRS:** EPSG:4326
- **Spatial coverage:** Global
- **Temporal coverage:** 2017-2025

## Usage notes

Risk variables follow a three-level naming convention. Risk types are bph (physical risk), brg (regulatory deficiency risk), and brp (reputational risk). Risk categories follow the convention brc_{category}, where category is a number from 1 to 17. Individual indicators follow the convention b_{category}_{indicator}, where category matches the risk category number and indicator is a sequential number within that category.

Risk values range from 1 (very low risk) to 5 (very high risk). Risk types, physical risk categories, and reputational risk categories are continuous weighted means. Regulatory deficiency risk categories and individual indicators are integer risk classes, with the exception of freshwater habitat degradation, water quality pollution, and water conflicts indicator variables, which are continuous. A value of -666 indicates that an indicator is not relevant to an assessment unit. Calculations exclude no-data and not-relevant values.

Some indicators are published at country level and are held constant within a country. The dataset is a single composite assessment rather than a time series. Source data is published between 2017 and 2025, and individual indicators draw on time windows of differing and sometimes longer duration. Where data are missing for an assessment unit, values are estimated from a sovereign, parent, or neighbouring unit, assigned a default risk class, or derived from source data more than five years old. The dataset is suitable for screening and prioritising water risk across operations and value chains, and is not suitable for site-level assessment.

## AOI constraints

- **Vertices:** ≤ 10,000
- **Geometry:** Polygon, MultiPolygon, Point, MultiPoint

## Variables

### id_0
- **Type:** int32
Sequential identifier of the parent unit.

### id_1
- **Type:** int32
Unique sequential identifier of the assessment unit.

### rfs_id
- **Type:** str
Risk Filter Suite unique identifier.

### parent_id
- **Type:** str
Original identifier of the parent unit.

### location_id
- **Type:** str
Three character code of the country or territory.

### sovereign
- **Type:** str
Three character ISO-3166 code of the sovereign nation.

### name
- **Type:** str
Assessment unit name. Corresponds to sub-basin name in the FAO Hydrological Basins of the World database.

### major_name
- **Type:** str
Major basin name. Corresponds to major basin name in the FAO Hydrological Basins of the World database.

### region
- **Type:** str
Broad geographic region. Adapted from World Bank regions.

### source
- **Type:** str
Assessment unit source dataset.

### source_id
- **Type:** str
Identifier within the source dataset. Identical to parent ID variable for HydroBASINS units.

### area
- **Type:** float64
- **Units:** km²
Area of the assessment unit.

### area_hybas
- **Type:** float64
- **Units:** km²
Area of the parent HydroBASINS Level 7 unit.

### area_location
- **Type:** float64
- **Units:** km²
Area of the country or territory corresponding to location ID variable.

### marine
- **Type:** bool
Indicates whether an assessment unit falls in the marine realm.

### activity_code
- **Type:** str
Four character code for the site activity applied when calculating physical and reputational risk values.

### only_terrestrial
- **Type:** bool
Indicates whether a site activity can occur only in terrestrial areas.

### bph
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Physical risk. Weighted mean of six physical risk category variables, with weights that vary by site activity. Represents potential adverse consequences to a company from its dependence on freshwater resources and ecosystem services.

### brc_1
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Water availability. Physical risk category representing risk from physical freshwater scarcity. Weighted mean of four constituent indicator variables.

### b_1_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Water depletion. Ratio of surface and groundwater consumptive use to available renewable water. Taken from WaterGAP3, based on average annual and monthly values for 1971-2000 and aligned with the SBTN Unified Layer calculated at HydroBASIN Level 6 scale.

### b_1_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Baseline water stress. Ratio of total surface and groundwater withdrawals to available renewable water. Taken from WRI Aqueduct 4.0, based on average monthly values for 1979-2019 regressed to a 2019 baseline and aligned with the SBTN Unified Layer calculated at HydroBASIN Level 6 scale.

### b_1_3
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Freshwater quantity target. Percentage by which current collective water use must be reduced to remain within ecologically sustainable limits. Based on blue water footprint for 1971-2010 and blue water footprint caps at HydroBASINS Level 5 and aligned with the SBTN Unified Layer calculated at HydroBASIN Level 6 scale.

### b_1_4
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Groundwater. Change in groundwater level. Taken from the Global Land Water Storage dataset, expressed as the change from 2003-2007 to 2015-2019.

### brc_2
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Drought. Physical risk category. Weighted mean of two constituent indicator variables.

### b_2_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Long-term drought. Proportion of dry events over a 10-year period, based on the 12-month Standardized Precipitation and Evaporation Index. Taken from the Copernicus Global Drought Observatory.

### b_2_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Short-term drought. Same index as long-term drought indicator variable, with the proportion of dry events calculated over a 3-year period.

### brc_3
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Flooding. Physical risk category. Weighted mean of two constituent indicator variables.

### b_3_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Flood occurrence. Count of flood events within an assessment unit over a 36-year period. Taken from the Dartmouth Flood Observatory.

### b_3_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Flood hazard. Median depth of a 100-year flood across an assessment unit. Taken from the JRC Global River Flood Hazard Maps.

### brc_4
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Water quality. Physical risk category. Evenly weighted mean of nine constituent indicator variables.

### b_4_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Coastal eutrophication potential. Potential for riverine loadings of nitrogen, phosphorus, and silica to stimulate harmful algal blooms in coastal waters. Taken from WRI Aqueduct 4.0 and aligned with the SBTN Unified Layer calculated at HydroBASIN Level 6 scale.

### b_4_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Nitrate-nitrite concentration. Predicted annual average nitrogen concentration in rivers. Taken from a World Bank machine-learning model, based on predictions for 2006-2010 and aligned with the SBTN Unified Layer calculated at HydroBASIN Level 6 scale.

### b_4_3
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Periphyton growth potential. Modelled dissolved and total nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations during the growing season, identifying which nutrient limits periphyton proliferation. Aligned with the SBTN Unified Layer calculated at HydroBASIN Level 6 scale

### b_4_4
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Biological oxygen demand. Average monthly biological oxygen demand concentration, representing organic pollution. Taken from DynQual, modelled for 2010-2019.

### b_4_5
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Pathogens. Average monthly faecal coliform concentration, representing pathogen pollution. Taken from DynQual, modelled for 2010-2019.

### b_4_6
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Pesticides. Multi-metric indicator combining a pesticide pollution risk value and the number of active ingredients posing environmental risk.

### b_4_7
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Chemicals. Toxicity stress on aquatic systems from chemicals transported through and accumulated in freshwater ecosystems. Taken from Deltares, based on modelled concentrations of 1,785 chemicals.

### b_4_8
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Plastics. Mismanaged plastic waste entering the environment, based on 2015 data.

### b_4_9
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Salinity. Average monthly total dissolved solids concentration, representing salinity. Taken from DynQual, modelled for 2010-2019.

### brc_5
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Water accessibility. Physical risk category. Evenly weighted mean of two constituent indicator variables.

### b_5_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Access to basic safe drinking water. Percentage of people using at least basic water services with a collection time of 30 minutes round trip or less. Taken from the WHO and World Bank Joint Monitoring Programme.

### b_5_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Access to basic sanitation. Percentage of people using at least basic sanitation services. Taken from the WHO and World Bank Joint Monitoring Programme.

### brc_6
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Ecosystem service status. Physical risk category. Weighted mean of five constituent indicator variables.

### b_6_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Forest canopy loss. Tree cover loss, used as a proxy for catchment ecosystem service degradation. Taken from the Hansen Global Forest Change dataset, covering 2000-2024.

### b_6_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Landslide hazard. Landslide susceptibility class. Taken from the NASA Landslide Sensitivity Map.

### b_6_3
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Invasive species. Count of unique invasive freshwater species, or species affecting freshwater environments, recorded within a national or sub-national area. Taken from the CABI Invasive Species Compendium.

### b_6_4
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Desertification. Count of converging land degradation and environmental change indicators. Taken from the convergence of evidence layer of the World Atlas of Desertification.

### b_6_5
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
River fragmentation. Percentage of river basin volume considered fragmented. Taken from the global free-flowing rivers dataset, based on the Connectivity Status Index.

### brg
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Regulatory deficiency risk. Adjusted regulatory deficiency risk value derived from Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessments, incorporating implementation risk category variable as a non-linear adjusting factor. Represents gaps in the water regulatory framework of the jurisdiction in which an assessment unit is located.

### brc_7
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Application. Regulatory deficiency risk category. Aggregate of two constituent indicator variables, following Legal Atlas aggregation rules.

### b_7_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Status of IWRM water policy. Existence, alignment with integrated water resources management (IWRM), and comprehensiveness of national water policy. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_7_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
IWRM policy statement in law. Whether IWRM objectives are reflected in the purpose or objectives statement of the law. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### brc_8
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Scoping. Regulatory deficiency risk category assessing the comprehensiveness of key water-related legal definitions. Aggregate of nine constituent indicator variables, following Legal Atlas aggregation rules.

### b_8_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Definition of freshwater resources. Presence and comprehensiveness of a legal definition of freshwater. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_8_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Definition of groundwater. Presence of a legal definition of groundwater. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_8_3
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Definition of wastewater. Presence and comprehensiveness of a legal definition of wastewater. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_8_4
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Definition of environmental water. Presence of a legal definition of environmental water. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_8_5
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Definition of wetlands. Presence and comprehensiveness of a legal definition of wetlands, referencing hydrology, soils, and vegetation. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_8_6
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Definition of basin, watershed, or catchment. Presence of a legal definition of basin or watershed, including transnational recognition. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_8_7
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Definition of riparian zone. Presence of a legal definition of riparian zones, covering habitat corridor, flood mitigation, and pollutant filtration. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_8_8
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Definition of potable water. Presence of a legal definition of potable or drinking water. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_8_9
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Definition of water pollution. Presence of a legal definition of water pollution. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### brc_9
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Rights, access and entitlements. Regulatory deficiency risk category. Aggregate of four constituent indicator variables, following Legal Atlas aggregation rules.

### b_9_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Constitutional right to clean and healthy environment. Constitutional recognition of citizen rights to a clean and healthy environment, including freshwater. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_9_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Access to water supply and sanitation infrastructure. Legal guarantee of access to clean water and sanitation infrastructure. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_9_3
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Water register. Existence of a water register recording licences and entitlements, with public accessibility. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_9_4
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Infrastructure and management. Legal mandate to develop and maintain water supply and sanitation infrastructure. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### brc_10
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Institutions and governance. Regulatory deficiency risk category. Aggregate of three constituent indicator variables, following Legal Atlas aggregation rules.

### b_10_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Water resource authority. Existence of a designated water authority with defined responsibilities and enforcement powers. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_10_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Coordination among national government authorities. Legal mechanisms coordinating national government authorities on water resources. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_10_3
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Public participation. Requirements for public participation in water management planning, infrastructure, and regulatory development. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### brc_11
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Management instruments. Regulatory deficiency risk category covering monitoring of water quality and status, catchment and resource management plans, data sharing, and disaster management. Aggregate of seven constituent indicator variables, following Legal Atlas aggregation rules.

### b_11_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Monitoring environmental water quality. Legal mandate for regular monitoring and reporting of water quality. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_11_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Monitoring of environmental water status. Legal requirement to monitor water quantity, including flow rates, surface water, and groundwater. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_11_3
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Water catchment management. Requirement for basin or catchment management plans with domestic, agricultural, industrial, and environmental components. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_11_4
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Water resource management plans. Legal mandate for water management plans with defined content, time frames, and spatial scales. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_11_5
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Enforceability of water resource management plans. Legal enforceability of mandated water management plans. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_11_6
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Water-related disasters. Laws addressing disaster and emergency spill management instruments, including drought and flood mitigation strategies. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_11_7
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Data compilation and sharing (national level). Legal mandate to compile and share water-related data nationally. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### brc_12
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Subnational water law. Regulatory deficiency risk category. Aggregate of two constituent indicator variables, following Legal Atlas aggregation rules.

### b_12_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Requirement to meet national standards. Whether subnational water law is required to meet national standards, and the scope of independent regulatory power held by subnational authorities. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_12_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Coordination among local and national authorities. Legal mechanisms coordinating local authorities with each other and with national bodies on water resources. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### brc_13
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Offences and penalties. Regulatory deficiency risk category. Aggregate of three constituent indicator variables, following Legal Atlas aggregation rules.

### b_13_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Violation of clean water standards. Penalties, including monetary fines and criminal sanctions, for violations of clean water standards, applicable to legal entities. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_13_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Violation of wastewater standards. Penalties for violations of wastewater standards, applicable to legal entities. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### b_13_3
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Harm to wetlands. Penalties for harm to wetlands, applicable to legal entities. Value from the Legal Atlas regulatory deficiency risk assessment.

### brc_14
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Implementation risk. Regulatory deficiency risk category derived from World Bank Worldwide Governance Indicators. Aggregate of two constituent indicator variables.

### b_14_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Effective policy formulation. Combined World Bank Government Effectiveness and Regulatory Quality indices, capturing the quality of public services, policy formulation, and the ability to design and implement business-enabling policies.

### b_14_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Respect for institutions. Combined World Bank Rule of Law and Control of Corruption indices, capturing contract enforcement, property rights, and the extent to which public power is used for private gain.

### brp
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Reputational risk. Weighted mean of three reputational risk category variables. Represents potential adverse consequences from negative stakeholder perception of a company's water-related impacts.

### brc_15
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Pressures on freshwater. Reputational risk category. Evenly weighted mean of three constituent indicator variables.

### b_15_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Freshwater exploitation. Potential water withdrawal assuming no constraints on water availability. Taken from WaterGAP v2.2e, modelled for 2022 under the ISIMIP3b protocol.

### b_15_2
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Freshwater habitat degradation. Multi-metric indicator combining wetland loss through human conversion, river extent change, and river fragmentation.

### b_15_3
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Water quality pollution. Direct copy of water quality category variable, treated as a standalone indicator within reputational risk.

### brc_16
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Environmental factors. Reputational risk category. Evenly weighted mean of four constituent indicator variables.

### b_16_1
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Freshwater biodiversity. Multi-metric indicator combining freshwater-dependent vertebrate species richness and endemism, aggregated to Freshwater Ecoregions of the World. Taken from the FreshVerts database.

### b_16_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Ramsar wetlands. Proportion of an assessment unit overlapping a Ramsar site from the List of Wetlands of International Importance. Taken from the Ramsar Sites Information Service.

### b_16_3
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Ecosystem condition (intact). Ecosystem Integrity Index, synthesising ecosystem function, structure, and composition into a single metric, inverted so that high ecosystem integrity corresponds to high risk.

### b_16_4
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Free flowing rivers. Direct inverse of river fragmentation indicator variable.

### brc_17
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Socio-economic factors. Reputational risk category. Weighted mean of three constituent indicator variables.

### b_17_1
- **Type:** float64
- **NoData:** -999
Water conflicts. Total number of water conflict events per country over a 100-year period, where water acts as a trigger, weapon, or casualty of conflict involving violence or the threat of violence. Taken from the Pacific Institute Water Conflict Chronology.

### b_17_2
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Labour and human rights. V-Dem Civil Liberties Index, estimating the extent to which people are free from torture, political killings, and forced labour, and enjoy freedoms of movement, religion, expression, and association.

### b_17_3
- **Type:** int32
- **NoData:** -999
Financial inequality. Gini coefficient. Taken from the Standardized World Income Inequality Database.

### geometry
- **Type:** wkb
Polygon geometry of the assessment unit.

## Pricing

The first 10 sites/100ha are free of charge as part of a free trial.

Site uploads are equated to 1 site = 1 ha.

The minimum billed fee for one dataset is $10,000. For two datasets, the minimum billed fee is $13,000.

https://docs.cecil.earth/documents/wwf-risk-filter-suite-pricing.pdf

| Volume | Price |
| --- | --- |
| ≤ 50,000 ha, one dataset | $0.35/ha |
| ≤ 50,000 ha, both datasets | $0.50/ha |
| 50,001 – 100,000 ha, one dataset | $0.175/ha |
| 50,001 – 100,000 ha, both datasets | $0.25/ha |
| 100,001+ ha, one dataset | $0.0875/ha |
| 100,001+ ha, both datasets | $0.125/ha |