Living the Global Water Crisis: How the World Experiences Water Insecurity

As populations around the world grapple with water security challenges that threaten lives, livelihoods, and political stability, efforts to bolster prosperity and avert crises require high-quality data that inform strategies to provide adequate quantities of stable and safe water to all. The Water Insecurity Experiences (WISE) Scales are innovative tools—used by researchers and decisionmakers alike—that enhance the ability to measure the lived experience of water insecurity and translate that understanding into development action and policy implementation. The world’s ability to anticipate and react to existing and novel threats of the global water crisis will be dictated, in part, by the collective capacity to turn this data into policy, and this policy into action.