Markus Andrews

Communities in Gansu province in China store snow in the winter months for use in the dry summers.Credit: Hai Ying/EPA/Shutterstock

Among the world’s ‘poly-crises’, the crisis of water is one of the most urgent. Worldwide, around 2 billion people lacked access to safe drinking water in 2020; and an estimated 1.7 billion did not have even basic sanitation. Every year, more than 800,000 people die from diarrhoea, because of unsafe drinking water and a lack of sanitation. Most of those are in low- and lower-middle income countries. This is a mind-boggling and unacceptable situation. Even more so in an age when huge investments are being made in instant video calling, personalized medicine and talk of inhabiting other planets.In 2015, the international community declared tackling the water crisis one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The sixth SDG commits the world to “ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all”. But the UN acknowledges that SDG 6 is “alarmingly off track”.International diplomacy is finally starting to get its act together. In March, world leaders will assemble in New York City for the UN 2023 Water Conference. It will be the first such event in nearly half a century, a fact that by itself should shame us all.Last October, the UN published the results of a consultation with government representatives as well as specialist and stakeholder communities on their priorities for the conference. Around 12% of respondents were from education, science and technology fields. The consensus was that data and evidence, improved access to knowledge (including Indigenous and local knowledge) and open research will be essential to getting SDG 6 back on track. Delegates attending the March conference will be looking to harness the full spectrum of established water sources and technologies, including freshwater and rainwater sources, treated groundwater, desalinated seawater and hydropower.There’s a wealth of knowledge already out there, in the form of established technologies, innovative alternatives and research that captures centuries-old knowledge and the practices of communities themselves. In the past, such knowledge has been ignored, or what has been learnt has been forgotten. Twenty years ago, for example, the UN invested in a major piece of research that captured examples of how communities living in water-stressed regions have used research and innovation to access water. The research highlighted, for example, how people in arid regions of China store snow in cellars during the winter that can then be melted for use in the summer months.Prerequisites for tackling the water crisis include consolidating what is already known and building on that knowledge. That’s why on 19 January, the Nature Portfolio of journals launched Nature Water. This journal will provide a space for all researchers — including those in natural and social sciences, and in engineering — to collectively contribute their knowledge, insights and the results of their learning, so that the world is on a more equitable and sustainable track. The launch issue includes research in fundamental, applied and social science, as well as opinion and analysis. Our editorial teams are committed to facilitating open science1.Some paths forward are clear. Damir Brdjanovic at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education in the Netherlands writes in Nature Water that there’s a vast body of research on alternatives to sewered sanitation — and how to use less or no water to safely dispose of faecal matter and inactivate pathogens2. There are alternatives to the flush toilet and underground, piped sewer networks. And Rongrong Xu at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China, and colleagues report that there are ways to create hydropower, especially in Africa and Asia, without the same environmental and social impacts3.However, research does not exist in a vacuum. The representatives of low- and middle-income countries also want to prioritize funding. The South African government, in its response to the UN consultation, says that the annual cost to meet the SDG water and sanitation targets is between 2.3% and 2.7% of the country’s gross domestic product (between US$7 billion and $7.6 billion annually). A project called the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, co-chaired by economist Mariana Mazzucato and climate scientist Johan Rockström (among others), is promising “new thinking on economics and governance” in time for the conference.Conflict theoryThose who will be attending the conference in March also told the UN they want to see international cooperation be made a priority for water and sanitation, especially in an era of heightened geopolitical tensions. More than 25 years ago, former vice-president of the World Bank Ismail Serageldin famously wrote that twenty-first-century conflicts would be over water, rather than oil. We are fortunate that this has not yet happened, although Serageldin told Nature that relations between countries that share water sources are worsening. Egypt is formally in dispute with Ethiopia over dam-building projects on the Nile River; the same is true of India and Pakistan in the Indus River Basin.In its response to the UN, Egypt’s delegation observed that the majority of people rely on water sources that are shared between nations, most of which lack formal agreements, including all-important data sharing agreements. Rhea Verbeke, at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, writes in Nature Water of the “sobering experience” of seeing no external submissions to an open database on water purification that was created more than one year ago4.The delegates assembling in New York need to accept that their countries’ visions will not be realized until all nations can somehow carve out a path to cooperate amid tension and conflict. Research can help to provide at least some of the right language, which is why it needs to be taken on board when decisions are being made. We in the Nature Portfolio intend to play our fullest part to make that happen. More

While much focus in recent years has been put on Open Access publishing, this is only a small part of Open Science. According to the 2015 FOSTER taxonomy19, Open Science integrates Open Access, Open Data, Open Source, and Open Reproducible Research (all of which we will touch on here, see Fig. 1a), while UNESCO and others have extended this further (e.g.,6). Open Data is commonly associated with the ‘FAIR Principles’20, which describe how to make data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. The FAIR principles were introduced in 2016 and provide vital guidance that can be applied irrespective of whether the data itself is strictly open or not21. Note that the FAIR principles do not enforce Open Access, i.e., FAIR data is not automatically Open Data. Conversely, Open Data that is neither FAIR nor managed (see Fig. 1b) can easily be useless data. Thus, the combination of Open and FAIR data is extremely important. However, even Open Access publishing combined with Open and FAIR data does not necessarily make the research reproducible and re-usable, as discussed further below.Fig. 1: The many elements of Open Science.a, Open Science (centre, blue) and the four elements of Open Science pointed out by UNESCO most pertinent to this article (orange-ish circles with text). The remaining elements of Open Science described by UNESCO were removed for space reasons. They are represented in the ‘…’ circle along with the smaller decorative bubbles to show that Open Science covers many facets, big and small6. b, FAIR data vs. Open Data vs. Managed Data. Image modified from ref. 36. Managed data means that the data has in some way been collected, stored, organized and maintained. There is a large proportion of managed data that is neither FAIR nor Open, along with a large proportion of unmanaged Open Data. Since both cases are difficult to include in reproducible workflows, scientists and journals alike should be working on expanding the intersection between FAIR and Open Data.Full size imageOpen Access is the subset of Open Science that includes principles and practices for distributing research outputs online, free of cost or other access barriers22,23. This includes for instance Open Access publications (e.g., the dissemination of research as so-called Green, Gold or Diamond Open Access) or the use of preprint servers to access earlier versions of research articles.Open Data refers to the availability of the data behind the published research, typically hosted in either institutional or domain-specific data repositories (e.g., HydroShare for hydrological data24), or generic repositories such as Zenodo or FigShare. For Open Access publications and Open Data, appropriate license conditions should be stipulated, so that the conditions of re-use are clear. Creative Commons (CC) licenses are commonly used, with CC0 (public domain) and CC-BY (re-use with attribution) being the most permissive. Other restrictions on CC licenses can cause problems for downstream use. For instance, the ‘ND’ (no derivatives) clause forbids re-use for derivative works, i.e., any actual re-use other than re-distribution of the original work, while ‘NC’ (non-commercial use only) can prevent commercial companies (e.g., instrument vendors) from integrating Open Data into vendor-provided instrument libraries that could be used by researchers. The ‘SA’ (share-alike) clause can enforce a license on downstream users that they may not be able to comply with, thus preventing integration of Open Data in other open projects (due to incompatible licenses). While Open Data is an important starting point, without the availability of appropriate metadata and sufficient FAIRness to make the data findable, accessible, re-useable and interoperable, Open Data alone is only of limited use. In the era of ‘big data’, it is now relatively easy to create a quick dump of data, but curation and FAIRification of data requires a concerted effort, which may necessitate either incentives (carrot) or mandates (stick). The Global Natural Products Social Molecular Networking (GNPS) ecosystem25 is a prime example for incentivising Open Data sharing. Starting primarily as a mass spectral data repository for metabolomics, the developers have consistently added features and functionality over the years to value-add the repository and increase motivation for deposition. For example, MASST26 has enabled discovery of the neurotoxin domoic acid and analogues within marine samples and food such as ocean-caught mackerel.Open Source software and code refer to the public availability of source code27, i.e., sets of computer instructions ranging from data processing scripts and algorithms to fully blown numerical models, desktop applications, or even operating systems. The purpose of open source is to provide transparency, and most importantly, re-usability and adaptability of the code, with a common aim of collaborative development. Licenses for Open Source works are generally designed to explicitly cover code sharing, thus Open Source licenses are generally preferred over CC, with common examples including GPL, Apache and MIT27. Suitable code repositories with version control and issue tracking are indispensable for collaborative open source developments, with common platforms including GitHub, GitLab, Bitbucket and more. For all three above-mentioned aspects of Open Science, i.e., Open Access, Open Data and Open Source, the generation of permanent identifiers such as a Digital Object Identifier (DOI)28 is an integral aspect of FAIR and vital to preserve the discoverability and lifetime of such projects.Finally, open reproducible research is a culmination of all three aspects above. With systems such as RMarkdown and Jupyter Notebooks, it is now possible to have fully compliable research outputs and reproducible manuscripts. The Journal of Open Source Software even accepts submissions as GitHub pull requests and compiles the entire submission on their system; one example relevant to water research is patRoon 2.0 (ref. 29). The ‘open-source knowledge infrastructure for collaborative and reproducible data science’ Renku facilitates traceability and reproducibility of complex workflows involving networks of interconnected code, data and figure files. It does so by automatic provenance tracking of output files and the creation of a version-controlled git repository containing all information, including the computational environment. More

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Interbasin water transfers have been defined many ways within the literature12,13,14 and by government agencies. For this study, we define an IBT as a human-mediated movement of surface water or groundwater from one sub-drainage area or subregion (HUC4) to another sub-drainage area or subregion through man-made or artificial pathways (e.g., canals, pipelines, aqueducts). Subregion15 and sub-drainage16 boundaries come from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and Natural Resources Canada, respectively. We further narrow our IBT definition to exclude the transfer of treated water and wastewater due to the lack of data describing complex municipal water and wastewater distribution systems across Canada and the US. The movement of untreated (or “raw”) water between the intake location of a water distribution system and the water treatment facility is deemed an IBT if it traverses a basin boundary (i.e., sub-drainage or subregion boundary; e.g., Fig. 3a); however, if water within the distribution system crosses a basin boundary after treatment, we do not include this instance within our IBT datasets (Fig. 3b). We have also removed inconsequential drainage ditches that drain less than 0.5 square kilometers. Such drainage ditches constituted a significant fraction of previous US IBT datasets7, even though they have a negligible hydrologic, ecological, or societal impact.Fig. 3Examples of potential interbasin transfers of raw water (a) and treated water (b). Raw water transfers are represented by yellow lines, while a treated water transfer is represented by a magenta line. If raw water crosses a subregion boundary (blue lines), it is included in our dataset, as is the case for the Schoharie and Delaware Aqueducts that bring raw water for New York City public water supply (a). If only treated water crosses a subregion boundary, as is the case for Gwinnett County’s public water supply system in Georgia (b), then it is not included within our IBT datasets.Full size imageThe creation of our IBT data products involved four steps: i) data collection, ii) data standardization, iii) data visualization, and iv) data validation. The first three steps are described in this section (Methods), while data validation is described within the ‘Technical Validation’ section.Data collectionTo create a national IBT dataset, we started with potential IBTs identified by Dickson and Dzombak7. Dickson and Dzombak extracted all artificial flow paths that crossed subregion boundaries from the USGS National Hydrography Dataset (NHD). These IBTs were not verified and lacked descriptive details, such as water use purpose or transfer volume. Furthermore, the number of IBTs reported by Dickson and Dzombak is artificially large since it counts each instance a conveyance structure crosses a basin boundary as an individual IBT, even if it is part of one larger IBT project (e.g., Central Arizona Project). These records were paired with older IBT datasets produced by USGS8,9. Together, these datasets represent the most complete US IBT datasets to date. We filtered out records from the combined datasets that did not meet our IBT definition, were duplicates, or were verified as being either decommissioned or erroneous. We also connected flowlines that are part of the same IBT project.Next, we searched state and federal reports, data repositories, and websites for data describing the location, properties, and flow volumes of IBTs. Findings from these searches allowed us to remove erroneous records within our current dataset, as well as add new IBTs that were not captured by previous datasets. Mostly, though, our review of government records allowed us to confirm IBT records and to provide more complete documentation of already identified IBTs. Websites for federal agencies that have a role in building, administering, or maintaining records on IBTs, such as the USGS, US Bureau of Reclamation (USBR), US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), were searched for relevant records. Approval by USACE is required when building across a navigable waterway, which is sometimes required for IBTs. Much of the major federal water supply infrastructure in the Western US, including IBTs, were built and are currently operated by USBR. The EPA has records related to water distribution systems17, including water intake and treatment locations, which were used to identify IBT locations. The USGS gauge network reports time-series records for 79 IBTs. Relevant state websites for IBT data collection were identified through the survey of state-level water data platforms developed by Josset et al.18.After reviewing the scientific literature and publicly available government reports, data repositories, and websites, we contacted federal, state, and local representatives for additional data records and to verify our existing records. Federal employees at USGS and USBR reviewed and provided additional records for our initial IBT dataset. The USGS Water Use Science Project regularly collects water use and water infrastructure data from states. The USGS Water Use team helped us identify the state agency and contact person that would most likely maintain IBT data for each state.We sent IBT data requests to each state via email and phone calls. In cases where these attempts were unsuccessful, we filed an Open Records Act or Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to collect any remaining data we were missing. In cases where neither federal or state agencies maintained the data we sought, we contacted IBT operators directly. Direct contact with IBT operators was primarily done when collecting time-series flow data for irrigation districts and municipal water suppliers.Canadian IBT data were collected from an Access to Information Act records request. The Environment and Climate Change Canada (formerly, Environment Canada) had maintained records of IBTs throughout Canada until 2011. Several reports published by Environment Canada researchers10,11 document Canadian IBTs and their properties. These reports highlight select IBTs but do not provide complete IBT records. Our Access to Information Act request provided us an unpublished report and associated data from 2004 that described the full collection of IBTs in Canada.Data were collected between August 2019 and June 2022. Our data products reflect the most up-to-date data held by primary data collectors on the date of our request. The date each IBT entry was collected is reported in the IBT Inventory Dataset. We collected all time-series flow data available for each IBT, with some records going back as far as 1901.Data standardizationThe data we collected were in a variety of file formats and data types. We created a data standard, which we named the Interbasin Transfer Database Standard Version 1.0. (IBTDS 1.0), to provide a consistent way of representing and defining data for all IBTs. The standardized IBT Inventory Dataset follows a node-link structure. Nodes represent places of water diversion, water use, or change in flow (e.g., reservoir, channel junction). Links represent conveyance infrastructure or natural waterways that connect two or more nodes within an IBT project. Unique link identifiers (Link ID) connect two or more unique node identifiers (Node ID). One or more links constitute an IBT project. The owner/operator of each IBT project, as well as the year the IBT project was commissioned and decommissioned (if applicable), is reported within the IBT Inventory Dataset.Geospatial details are reported for each IBT project in the IBT Inventory Dataset and the IBT Geospatial Dataset. We obtained the precise latitude and longitude of each node using the various data sources noted previously, as well as visual inspection of high-resolution aerial imagery from Google Earth and Esri’s World Imagery layer. Precise geospatial information is reflected in the IBT Geospatial Dataset. The IBT Inventory Dataset lists the hydrologic and geopolitical boundaries that contain each node. For the US, the state and county name and the Federal Information Processing System (FIPS) Code is also provided for each node. Likewise, the province and Census Geographic Unit is given for each node in Canada. The IBT project name (e.g., Heron Bayou Drainage Ditch, Hennepin Canal) associated with each node and link segment is also reported.As is often the case with irrigation and drainage IBT projects, there are sometimes several relatively small, adjacent diversions/ditches along an IBT project. We focus on capturing the main components of the IBT, instead of representing dozens or even hundreds of connected small ditches that divert or collect water along the IBT project. Nonetheless, when the collective impact of these small water diversions or inputs may noticeably change IBT flows, we depict these small ditches together as a representative two-node pair connected by a link segment. One of the nodes represents approximately the middle of where these small ditches intersect with the main IBT channel. The other node is the approximate centroid of water users served by or areas drained by these small ditches. If one of the secondary channels is large relative to the main channel (i.e., ability to divert more than ~25% of the main channel flow based on channel top width or flow records), it is recorded with its own Node ID and Link ID (Fig. 4). Likewise, if a secondary channel has an official name granted by a government agency or its owner/operator, we also record this segment with its own Node IDs and Link ID(s).Fig. 4An example of an interbasin water transfer project in Arizona with major (yellow) and minor (orange) project components. The thick yellow lines represent primary components of the project that are recorded in our dataset and assigned a Link ID (white text label). The thin orange lines represent secondary or tertiary canals or ditches that are small relative to the main (yellow) project segments and are therefore not represented in our dataset. The blue lines represent HUC4 subregion boundaries.Full size imageWe record the primary, secondary, and tertiary purpose of each IBT project and these purposes are the same for all links within the IBT project. One of “water supply – public supply”, “water supply – irrigation”, “flood control”, “navigation”, “waste discharge”, “environmental flows”, “energy – hydroelectric”, “energy – thermoelectric”, “energy – mining”, “other”, or “unknown” is assigned to each IBT project based on online records, design documents, reports, and/or personal correspondence with local, state, or federal officials. Link infrastructural properties, such as whether the link is a lined canal, unlined canal, pipe/tunnel, or other structure, are recorded for each link segment.The average water transfer rate (m3/d) is reported for each link segment where this information is known. The average water transfer rate only represents flows for the identified link segment, not necessarily the entire IBT project since upstream/downstream diversions and inputs may mean flow rates are different in different portions of the project. The average water transfer rate is converted from the units provided to us but is otherwise left unchanged. The primary data records are often unclear or do not specify the time period used to estimate average water transfer rates. The IBT Inventory Dataset reports whether time-series data is available for each Link ID in the IBT Time-Series Flow Dataset.The IBTDS 1.0 data standard was also applied to the IBT Time-Series Flow Dataset. The unique Link ID identifying the location where the transferred flow rate was measured is recorded for each time-series entry, relating the time-series data records to the IBT Inventory Dataset. The recorded flow rate only represents water transfer rates for the given link segment where the measurement was made, not necessarily the entire IBT project. Time-series data describing IBT flow rates were recorded at various temporal resolutions, ranging from instantaneous gauge readings every 15 minutes to average annual records. The standardized time-series dataset converted all reported water transfers to a common measurement unit (m3) and temporal resolution (day). When available, a web link to the original data source is published with the standardized data. The original timestep which the data was collected is also reported for each entry.In a few instances, there is more than one flow measurement for a link segment. Measurements are typically reported by different agencies and the measurements do not always align perfectly, either in their quantity or frequency of their reporting. Unless one of the records is known to be erroneous or of inferior quality, both sets of records are standardized and reported. For example, USBR reports monthly water transfer volumes along the Central Arizona Project (Link ID: CAP.AZ.01), while USGS reports daily water transfer volumes for the same link segment.Data visualizationWe provide an online visualization of the IBT Geospatial Dataset using ArcGIS Online (https://virginiatech.maps.arcgis.com/apps/mapviewer/index.html?webmap=b2cfac9b70ea44e4938734da0b1a7c8e), which is also summarized in Fig. 1. Every IBT node and link segment in the IBT Inventory Dataset is included. An arrowhead at the end of a link segment depicts the flow direction of transferred water. Link segments imported into ArcGIS Online were initially represented as a straight path between connected nodes. When the IBT flowpath was visible from aerial imagery or the flowpath was available from existing sources (e.g., NHD or detailed engineering drawings), the exact path of transferred water was mapped; otherwise, the flowpath remained a straight line between connected nodes.State and federal agencies restricted some of the data we are able to share publicly. Specifically, we are not permitted to reveal the exact water intake and treatment locations of some public water suppliers. Instead of mapping the precise latitude and longitude of points of diversion, points of flow change, and points of use like with other IBTs, IBTs whose primary purpose is public water supply are depicted as a straight line connecting the centroids of subwatersheds (HUC12) where the IBT node is located. More

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