The Global Water System Project –
International Coordination for Integrated Research

The Earth System Science Partnership of DIVERSITAS, IGBP, IHDP and WCRP recently launched a set of four Joint Projects to address research questions regarding the global aspects of environmental change impacts on water, food, carbon and human health in an integrated way.

Multiple threats, summarized under the heading of global environmental change, and interactions cause perturbations to the global water system, a system that is not well observed, understood, and, due to its complexity, has yielded limited predictability. The Global Water System Project builds on 25 years of scientific leadership, expertise and the information database of the four global environmental change programmes to create added value results for societal benefits. While science driven, the Joint Project on the Global Water System will provide policy-informing results, specifically targeting issues pertaining to the global aspects of environmental change that are of high interest to water managers worldwide. After the publication of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report it has become clear that vulnerability of societies is closely linked to modifications to the water system. At the same time, there is a broad array of other more direct changes to the water system within the Earth system – including impacts of water engineering, aquatic biodiversity loss, point and non-point source pollution, and land use change.

GWSP research supports global assessments of water, and the development of adaptation strategies with the appropriate scientific basis and international consensus as was done for greenhouse gases. GWSP coordinates and supports a bold research agenda to understand this complex system with its interactions between natural and human components and their feedbacks. Societies require a broad knowledge of the global water system with regard to achieving sustainability, reducing poverty or maintaining biodiversity and environmental flows. GWSP will lead the way to provide well researched, integrative solutions, involving the biological and physical sciences as well as economists and social sciences, to reduce the vulnerability of the Earth system and to give guidance to societies by assessments and future projections of the state of the global water system. GWSP will provide strategies for policy-informing research on human dimensions underpinned by political discourse, global observing systems, model simulations, and by delivering tailored products for water managers on all continents.