Updated Freshwater Basin Threshold Tool Transforms Access to Complex Water Data for Corporate Sustainability Leaders
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The Lincoln Institute of Land Policy’s Land and Water impact area and Center for Geospatial Solutions (CGS), together with World Wildlife Fund (WWF), announced the launch of a new digital Freshwater Basin Threshold Tool (BTT), developed in collaboration with the Freshwater Hub of the Science Based Targets Network (SBTN). Designed for corporations, NGOs, water researchers, and other decision-makers, the publicly available BTT Online Beta turns complex freshwater science and data into accessible, actionable information. The tool helps users understand environmental needs at the basin scale, establish science-based freshwater targets, and identify where action and investment can have meaningful impact, while making the evidence and methodologies behind those insights more accessible.
“The health of watersheds is central to the sustainability of all ecosystems,” said John Farner, executive director of Land and Water at the Lincoln Institute. “The Basin Threshold Tool provides crucial insight into fostering sustainable water systems and maintaining ecosystem health in the context of our changing climate.”
In its new form, the BTT is an open-source platform that compiles and displays basin surface water flows, levels, storage, and quality around the world. Previously, applying this guidance to set science-based freshwater targets would require specialized GIS analysis, technical expertise, and significant manual work to identify basin boundaries, interpret datasets, and calculate appropriate thresholds. Today, the new BTT brings much of that process into a repeatable digital workflow.
The Freshwater Hub of the Science Based Targets Network is a collaborative effort co-led by WWF and World Resources Institute (WRI), along with Pacific Institute, The Nature Conservancy, CDP, and Conservation International. Together, these partners developed some of the leading science used in the frameworks, tools, methods, and guidance for water impact assessment, management, and reporting. To support this effort, the Lincoln Institute has made a $300,000 in-kind contribution of data management and software development services to WWF through CGS, a nonprofit technology partner focused on turning complex data into practical decision-support tools. CGS is providing the geospatial, data-integration, and product-development capabilities needed to transform the BTT from a spreadsheet-based resource into an accessible online decision-support tool, supported by data infrastructure that connects user-facing results to the methodologies, studies, and source data behind them.
“The challenge is not a lack of freshwater science or water data, but making that information easy to apply in real-world decisions at scale,” said Kyle Onda, director of data science and engineering at the Center for Geospatial Solutions. “Rather than building the BTT as a one-off application, we designed an underlying open data foundation that can evolve with the science, support new applications, and extend the value of this work to the broader freshwater community.”
The Lincoln Institute and WWF will be unveiling the BTT on September 23 at Climate Week NYC. The event, which will also be livestreamed, will include a panel discussion on corporate water engagement and policy and a technical demonstration of the tool focusing on the Rio Grande Basin.
“The appeal of this tool is its simple interface. It is easy to use, but the data making up the foundation is extremely well researched, detailed, and specific,” said Angela Bowman, senior director of US Waterscapes and Freshwater Metrics at WWF-US. “CGS understands how to make that kind of data accessible to every user and you can feel the ease when you’re using the tool. From a business perspective, that means teams can start using the insights right away and quickly integrate science-based targets into decision-making.”
Kristina McGeehan is director of communications at the Lincoln Institute.
Lead image: Backwater Wetlands of the Mississippi River in the Trempealeau National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin. Credit: Wildnerdpix via iStock / Getty Images Plus.