Water Accounting Plus

WA+ Sheets

One of the outputs of WA+ are the standardized WA+ Sheets.

Sheet 1 - Resource Base (example)

Purpose

  • General overview on over‑exploitation, unmanageable, manageable, exploitable, reserved, utilized and utilizable flows at river basin scale
  • Discern between landscape ET (by rainfall) and incremental ET (by natural and man-made withdrawals)
  • Assessing commitments to environment and legal agreements
  • Quantifying atmospheric water recycling
  • Understand water scarcity during dry years

The sheet generator for Sheet 1 can be found here 

Purpose

  • Quantify water consumption for all land use classes throughout the basin
  • Describing the anthropogenic impact on ET and concepts of ET management to reduce total water consumption from withdrawals and inundations
  • Understand impact of land use planning on consumptive use
  • Relate water consumption to intended processes (beneficial vs. non-beneficial ET)

The sheet generator for Sheet 2 can be found here 

Purpose

  • Asses agricultural production (kg/ha) in terms of food, feed, timber and fish products
  • Compute the related water productivity (kg/m³) and the gap to demonstrate loss of returns (kg, $ )
  • Decide on future rainfed and irrigated cropping systems
  • Indicate possibilities for saving water in agriculture, with an emphasis on non-beneficial water consumption and shifts from irrigated to rainfed crops and agroforestry systems

The sheet generator for Sheet 3 can be found here 

Sheet 4 - Utilized Flow (examplePart1, Part2)

Purpose

  • Provide overview of all man-made withdrawals and assessment of non-authorized use
  • Estimate natural withdrawals due to seasonal floods, shallow groundwater tables and groundwater dependent ecosystems such as forests
  • Describe surface water and groundwater contribution to total withdrawals
  • Distinguish between consumed and non-consumed water and show impact of non-consumptive water use on downstream users; i.e. terrestrial water recycling
  • Recognizing recoverable and non‑recoverable flow

Sheet 5 - Surface Water (example)

Purpose

  • Quantify the natural and actual river flow along a transect of tributaries
  • Determine the surface water availability and utilizable withdrawals in any location in the river basin
  • Describe storage in tributaries and main rivers for regulation purposes and assess the need for more
  • Assist in the planning of infrastructure and water resources development
  • Prepare (surface) water allocation plans, also for dry years
  • Assess needs to modify river flow and increase water security

Sheet 6 - Groundwater (example)

Purpose

  • Understand the role of groundwater in renewable water resources
  • Assess aquifers as a storage reservoir for droughts and their role as buffering mechanism
  • Preparing safe groundwater withdrawal plans (i.e. prevent declining groundwater tables)