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Water

Riverine flood risk

Baseline riverine flood risk from Aqueduct 4.0: a 0-5 basin score, not the water-stress score and not an inundation-depth map.

World map of Aqueduct 4.0 riverine flood risk scores, darker blue where the baseline score is higher — Map: Fix Planet from WRI Aqueduct 4.0 baseline riverine flood risk, 2023. The number is the indicator score from 0 to 5. CC BY 4.0. Boundaries: Natural Earth.

Water 2023 WRI Aqueduct 4.0

What

The map is the WRI Aqueduct 4.0 baseline riverine flood risk score for sub-basins, from 0 to 5. It is a modelled risk score. Aqueduct Floods, a related WRI tool built with Deltares, VU Amsterdam, Utrecht University, and PBL, publishes inundation depth by return period for riverine and coastal floods. Those depth rasters are not this plate.

Why on this shelf

Water stress compares demand with supply. This card is the separate Aqueduct score for riverine flood risk. It does not replace basins or AQUASTAT.

How to read it

The colour is the 0-5 score. A higher score is higher modelled riverine flood risk, not a water depth and not a forecast that a city floods tomorrow. Coastal inundation depth is a different product in Aqueduct Floods.

Caveats

The score is a model. It is not an inundation depth and not the baseline water-stress score. Aqueduct Floods keeps the depth maps and the coastal layers.

Sources

License

Aqueduct 4.0 is CC BY 4.0 (World Resources Institute). The map is the baseline riverine flood risk score (0-5), not an inundation-depth raster from Aqueduct Floods and not the water-stress score. Cite Kuzma et al. 2023.

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World map of Aqueduct 4.0 baseline water stress scores, from low scores in pale yellow to high scores in red across dry and heavily used basins

Water stress

WRI Aqueduct 2023

WRI Aqueduct: where demand for water is high relative to available supply, a model, not a well log.

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World map of selected river watersheds in pastel polygons on a light-blue ocean, a hydrographic base, not a water-stress index

Global river basins

HydroBASINS 2013

Nested sub-basin polygons for the whole planet (Pfafstetter levels), a hydrographic base map, not a stress index.

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Our World in Data choropleth of renewable freshwater resources per person: pale dryland countries and darker teal water-rich countries

Freshwater resources (AQUASTAT)

FAO AQUASTAT 2022

Country-level renewable water and withdrawals from FAO’s global water information system, statistics and country profiles, not a single stress raster.

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World map of Aqueduct 4.0 groundwater table decline scores, darker where the modelled water table is falling, grey where the baseline layer has no score

Groundwater table decline

WRI Aqueduct 4.0 2023

Where Aqueduct 4.0 scores a falling groundwater table, a basin risk score, not a WHYMAP aquifer map and not a well log.

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Source: WRI Aqueduct 4.0

World map with dark-blue lake and reservoir dots clustered in known lake districts, a shoreline inventory schematic, not river basins

Fix Planet overview

Global lakes (HydroLAKES)

HydroSHEDS · HydroLAKES · Messager et al. 2016

Shoreline polygons for ~1.4 million lakes and reservoirs ≥10 ha, a lake inventory map, not river basins and not a stress index.

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Source: HydroSHEDS: HydroLAKES

World map with teal open-water, green marsh, brown peat, and gold intermittent-water patches: wetland classes, not lake shorelines

Fix Planet overview

Lakes and wetlands (GLWD v2)

HydroSHEDS · GLWD v2 · Lehner et al. 2025

Global inland waters in 33 waterbody and wetland classes, marshes, peatlands, intermittent water and more, not a second HydroLAKES shoreline layer.

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Source: HydroSHEDS: GLWD v2