Betsy Otto (LF ’07) recently joined the Markets and Enterprise Program at the World Resources Institute, a global environmental think tank in Washington, DC. She is directing WRI’s Aqueduct project, a global water risk assessment and mapping tool to inform private and public sector investment and water management decisions. The Aqueduct project team engages business, NGOs and governments for positive change in managing water resources worldwide.
Betsy also works with staff across WRI on its broader freshwater-related work. Water risk assessments and decision support tools are burgeoning as policymakers and business leaders recognize the growing conflicts over water due to overconsumption, climate change, population growth, and food and energy needs. Aqueduct has developed the most comprehensive assessment framework and database of geographic water risk for countries and river basins around the world, including water quantity, quality, and reputational risks for business. Aqueduct also includes a geo-coded water news feature to allow users to spot future water conflicts in particular areas. The Aqueduct project also includes highly detailed basin analyses that measure many additional water risk factors at a very local level. These basin “deep dives” have been completed for the Yellow River basin in China, and will soon be available for the Orange-Senku River in southern Africa, the Murray-Darling River in Australia, the Colorado River (USA), and for the Yangtze and Mekong river basin by the end of 2012.