Corporative Water Risk Assessment - CWRA

• Grant number: 16/21902-0
• Support Opportunities: Research Grants - Innovative Research in Small Business - PIPE
• Duration: September 01, 2017 - July 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Engineering - Sanitary Engineering - Water Resources
• Principal Investigator: Claudio Bicudo Mendonça
• Grantee: Claudio Bicudo Mendonça
• Host Company: H2O Company Gestão em Sustentabilidade Ltda. - ME
• City: São Paulo
• Pesquisadores principais: Renata de Souza Leão Martins
• Associated researchers: Wilson Cabral de Sousa Junior
• Associated grant(s): 20/10047-8 - Corporative Water Risk Assessment - CWRA, AP.PIPE
• Associated scholarship(s): 17/16507-8 - Corporative Water Risk Assessment CWRA, BP.PIPE

Abstract

In recent years, cases of water scarcity have been frequent in several Brazilian regions, bringing concerns related to water issues. The Brazilian current scenario shows an upward trend in the demand for water while there is a historical lack of sanitation and water sources protection and in addition, climate change may intensify water scarcity situations. The industrial sector requires large volumes of water in their direct operations and value chain. At the 2015 World Economic Forum, the uncertainties and risks associated to water were classified as the main threat to the maintenance of economic activity. In this scenario, a good corporate water management is the key to business success. There are many international tools of water risk assessment, however, the data and information that feed these tools are in macro-scale (eg national average data) and have no interface with the peculiarities of each Brazilian watershed. Thus, the usage of international tools by the Brazilian industries, ends up generating inaccurate results and may even not identify potential risks to the business of each company. The objective of this project is to develop a water risk assessment tool applicable to Brazilian companies. This tool will work through a software that will be feed by the organization's data and also the local watershed data. The software will calculate the industry's water consumption, considering the entire value chain. Later, it will cross the water requirement in the various value chain stages with local data related to the operational areas. Then it will be possible getting a balance between supply and water requirement, identifying risk situations and potential improvement actions in the processes. At first there will be a comprehensive survey of the main international water risk tools for the corporate sector. Then a detailed study to define the data and indicators that will make the software will be conducted. Having defined the indicators and required data, the technical feasibility study of the development of the software will start. It is intended to have a defined model of the software until the end of the project (maximum 9 months), so in PIPE 2, the software will be developed and pilot studies will be carried out. It is expected that this software allows managers of companies to develop water risk reduction strategies and can also contribute to the water sustainable management in the watershed where they have their activities. The product should also benefit the customer by improvements in environmental management and in the organization's image. (AU)