Aqueduct Tools

Aqueduct is a data platform run by World Resources Institute. It is comprised of tools that help companies, governments, and civil society understand and respond to water risks – such as water stress, variability from season-to-season, pollution, and water access.

Aqueduct uses open-source, peer reviewed data to map water risks such as floods, droughts and stress. Beyond the tools, the Aqueduct team works one-on-one with companies, governments and research partners through the Aqueduct Alliance to help advance best practices in water resource management and enable sustainable growth in a water-constrained world.

Aqueduct tools include:

  • Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas, which maps and analyzes current and future water risks across locations;
  • Aqueduct Country Rankings, which allows decision-makers to understand and compare national and subnational water risks;
  • Aqueduct Food, which identifies current and future water risks to agriculture and food security; and
  • Aqueduct Floods, which identifies coastal and riverine flood risks, and analyzes the costs and benefits of investing in flood protection.

Aqueduct data is available for download in several formats. The underlying code can be downloaded on GitHub. If you would like to adapt and/or share the data, please provide attribution as dictated by WRI’s Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

Where U.S. house prices may be most overvalued as climate change worsens

Read the full story in the Washington Post.

While individual homeowners stand to collectively lose billions as hurricanes and heavy rains intensify flooding, local governments that rely on property taxes also could suffer crippling decreases in revenue

Global internet connectivity at risk from climate disasters

Read the full story at Climatewire.

The flow of digital information through fiber-optic cables lining the sea floor could be compromised by climate change.

That’s according to new research published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews by scientists from the United Kingdom’s National Oceanography Centre and the University of Central Florida. They found that ocean and nearshore disturbances caused by extreme weather events have exposed “hot spots” along the transglobal cable network, increasing the risk of internet outages.

Damage from such outages could be enormous for governments, the private sector and nonprofit organizations whose operations rely on the safe and secure flow of digital information.

ECB launches new financed emissions and sustainable finance indicators to track climate risk

Read the full story at ESG Today.

The European Central Bank (ECB) announced today the publication of a series of new statistical indicators aimed at helping to analyze climate-related risks in the financial sector and track the progress of the sustainable finance market.

The launch of the new statistical indicators forms part of the ECB’s climate action plan, launched by the central bank in July 2022, which included initiatives to further incorporate climate change considerations into its monetary policy framework, as well as to enhance its risk assessment tools and capabilities to better include climate-related risks, and to improve the external assessment of climate risks.

America underwater: Extreme floods expose the flaws in FEMA’s risk maps

Read the full story in the Washington Post.

This year, extreme precipitation deluged communities across the United States — a hallmark risk of a warming climate. Government flood-insurance maps often left residents unprepared for the threat. A Washington Post analysis of videos taken by people who endured destruction from flooding pinpoints how federal maps are failing to reflect the growing peril that Americans face.

EPA finds trichloroethylene poses an unreasonable risk to human health

Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized a revision to the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) risk determination for trichloroethylene (TCE), finding that TCE, as a whole chemical substance, presents an unreasonable risk of injury to human health when evaluated under its conditions of use. The next step in the process is to develop a risk management rulemaking to identify and require the implementation of measures to manage these risks.

Uses and Risks Associated with TCE

TCE is a volatile organic compound used mostly in industrial and commercial processes. Consumer uses include cleaning and furniture care products, arts and crafts, spray coatings and automotive care products like brake cleaners.  

In the revised risk determination based on the 2020 risk evaluation, EPA found that TCE presents unreasonable risk to the health of workers, occupational non-users (workers nearby but not in direct contact with this chemical), consumers, and bystanders. EPA identified risks for adverse human health effects not related to cancer, including neurotoxicity and liver effects, from acute and chronic inhalation and dermal exposures to TCE. EPA also identified risks for cancer from chronic inhalation and dermal exposures to TCE.

EPA used the whole chemical risk determination approach for TCE in part because there are benchmark exceedances for multiple conditions of use (spanning across most aspects of the chemical life cycle from manufacturing (import), processing, commercial use, consumer use and disposal) for health of workers, occupational non-users, consumers, and bystanders, and because the health effects associated with TCE exposures are severe and potentially irreversible (including developmental toxicity, reproductive toxicity, liver toxicity, kidney toxicity, immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity and cancer).

Overall, EPA determined that 52 of the 54 conditions of use EPA evaluated drive the unreasonable risk determination. Two out of 54 conditions of use do not drive the unreasonable risk: consumer use of TCE in pepper spray and distribution in commerce. The revised risk determination supersedes the condition of use-specific no unreasonable risk determinations that were previously issued by order under section 6(i) of TSCA in the 2020 TCE risk evaluation.

The revised risk determination for TCE does not reflect an assumption that workers always and appropriately wear personal protective equipment (PPE), even though some facilities might be using PPE as one means to reduce workers’ exposure. This decision should not be viewed as an indication that EPA believes there is widespread non-compliance with applicable Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) standards. In fact, EPA has received public comments from industry respondents about occupational safety practices currently in use at their facilities and will consider these comments, as well as other information on use of PPE, engineering controls and other ways industry protects its workers as potential ways to address unreasonable risk during the risk management process. The consideration of this information will be part of the risk management process.

EPA understands there could be occupational safety protections in place at some workplace locations. However, not assuming use of PPE in its baseline exposure scenarios reflects EPA’s recognition that certain subpopulations of workers exist that may be highly exposed because:

  • They are not covered by OSHA standards (e.g., self-employed individuals and public sector workers who are not covered by a state plan);
  • Their employers are out of compliance with OSHA standards;
  • OSHA’s chemical-specific Permissible Exposure Limits (largely adopted in the 1970’s) are described by OSHA as being “outdated and inadequate for ensuring protection of worker health;” or
  • The OSHA permissible exposure limit alone may be inadequate for ensuring protection of worker health, as is the case for TCE.

As EPA moves forward with a risk management rulemaking for TCE, the agency will strive for consistency with existing OSHA requirements or best industry practices when those measures would address the identified unreasonable risk. EPA will propose occupational safety measures in the risk management process that would meet TSCA’s statutory requirement to eliminate unreasonable risk of injury to health and the environment.

Next Steps for TCE

EPA is now moving forward on risk management to address the unreasonable risk presented by TCE. While the risk evaluation included a description of the more sensitive endpoint (fetal heart malformations), it was not relied on to determine whether there is unreasonable risk from TCE because of direction not to do so that was provided by the previous political leadership. Unreasonable risks were nevertheless identified for most uses of TCE, but the magnitude of the risk from exposures to TCE would have been greater had EPA relied upon the fetal cardiac defect (CHD) endpoint that had been used in previous EPA peer-reviewed assessments. Therefore, EPA developed existing chemical exposure limits based on both the immune endpoint and the CHD endpoint in support of risk management, and the public will have an opportunity to comment on these in the forthcoming proposed regulatory action.

Note that in taking this action, EPA has not conducted a new scientific analysis on this chemical substance and the risk evaluation continues to characterize risks associated with individual conditions of use in the risk evaluation of TCE in order to inform risk management.

In June 2021, EPA announced a path forward for the first 10 chemicals to undergo risk evaluation under TSCA to ensure the public is protected from unreasonable risks from these chemicals in a way that is supported by science and the law. The revised risk determination for TCE was developed in accordance with these policy changes, as well as the Biden-Harris Administration’s Executive Orders and other directives, including those on environmental justice, scientific integrity and regulatory review. EPA’s revisions ensure that the TCE risk determination better aligns with the objectives of protecting health and the environment under amended TSCA.

Separately, EPA is conducting a screening-level approach to assess risks from the air and water pathways for several of the first 10 chemicals, including TCE. The goal of the screening approach is to evaluate the surface water, drinking water, and ambient air pathways for TCE that were excluded from the 2020 risk evaluation, and to determine if there are risks that were unaccounted for in that risk evaluation. EPA expects to describe its findings regarding the chemical-specific application of this screening-level approach in its proposed risk management rule for TCE.

Additionally, EPA expects to focus its risk management action on the conditions of use that drive the unreasonable risk. However, EPA is not limited to regulating the specific activities found to drive unreasonable risk and may select from among a wide range of risk management requirements. As a general example, EPA may regulate upstream activities (e.g., processing, distribution in commerce) to address downstream activities (e.g., consumer uses) driving unreasonable risk, even if the upstream activities do not drive the unreasonable risk.

Read more on EPA’s website.

Source: U.S. EPA

The majority of California’s coastal airports are vulnerable to increased flooding caused by climate change

Read the full story from the Society for Risk Analysis.

A new study has found that 39 out of 43 coastal airports in California have assets exposed to projected flooding that could disrupt their operations in the next 20 to 40 years.

Rising Waters: Climate Change Impacts and Toxic Risks to Lake Michigan’s Shoreline Communities

Download the document.

This report identifies twelve areas where high lake levels and strong storms could impact industrial facilities, contaminated sites, and communities along Lake Michigan.

Flood Risk Disclosure: Model State Requirements for Disclosing Flood Risk During Real Estate Transactions

Download the document.

As of the date of publication, 35 states have enacted some form of legal or regulatory mechanism requiring property sellers to disclose factors related to flood risk about their property. This guide identifies states with the strongest flood risk disclosure requirements and provides a selection of their laws and disclosure forms as models for use in introducing or strengthening a state’s real estate disclosure requirements.

North Carolina Fish Forum turns research collaboration into action

Read the full story at Environmental Factor.

Researchers across three NIEHS-funded universities and their stakeholders organized the North Carolina Fish Forum in 2019 to understand the process of setting fish consumption advisories and barriers to more effectively communicating them. Three years later, the collaborators continue to reveal new insight into contaminants in fish, inform more health-protective advisories, and communicate risks to diverse groups.

Fishing is a beloved pastime and, for many, a source of affordable, local food. However, some types of fish may contain potentially harmful contaminants. Fish consumption advisories help people understand what fish are safe to eat, for whom, and in what quantities.