Water security demands guaranteeing economic, social and environmental sustainability and simultaneously addressing the diversity of risks and threats related to water. Various frameworks have been suggested to support water security assessment. They are typically based on indexes enabling national comparisons; these may, however, oversimplify complex and often contested water issues. We developed a structured and systemic way to assess water security and its future trends via a participatory process. The framework establishes a criteria hierarchy for water security, consisting of four main themes: the state of the water environment; human health and well-being; the sustainability of livelihoods; and the stability, functions and responsibility of society. The framework further enables the analysis of relationships between the water security criteria as well as between water, energy and food security. The framework was applied to a national water security assessment of Finland in 2018 and 2030. Our experience indicates that using the framework collaboratively with stakeholders provides a meaningful way to improve understanding and to facilitate discussion about the state of water security and the actions needed for its improvement.

The recent global food crises have highlighted how the agro-food system tends to be subject to powerful agribusiness players, with thus far unidentified consequences for global water security. By connecting hydro-hegemony and virtual water concepts, this study illustrates the Western dominance over the virtual water embedded in international agro-food commodity trade flows. Accordingly, foreign direct investment in land by emerging Asian and Arab economies and their increased competition over the sources of global food supply chains appear as strategies to challenge the Western agribusiness “virtual water hegemony”.

Water, energy, and security form a complicated nexus in Central Asia, where domestic, regional, and international interests intertwine in numerous ways. A relatively large amount of literature exists on these three issues, either separately or in different combinations, yet it is difficult to see how the three intertwine and what their macro-level impacts might be on sustainable development, security, and the five Central Asian countries. This paper aims to understand what constitutes the water–energy–security nexus in Central Asia on the basis of definitions, indicators, and data. The nexus is also examined in the context of the broader global political economy, and gaps in current knowledge and suggestions for future research are pointed out.

In environmental management and sustainability there is an increasing interest in measurement and accounting of beneficial impact—as an incentive to action, as a communication tool, and to move toward a positive, constructive approach focused on opportunities rather than problems. One approach uses the metaphor of a “handprint,” complementing the notion of environmental footprints, which have been widely adopted for impact measurement and accounting. We analyze this idea by establishing core principles of handprint thinking: Handprint encourages actions with positive impacts and connects to analyses of footprint reductions but adds value to them and addresses the issue of what action should be taken. We also identify five key questions that need to be addressed and decisions that need to be made in performing a (potentially quantitative) handprint assessment, related to scoping of the improvement to be made, how it is achieved, and how credit is assigned, taking into account constraints on action. A case study of the potential water footprint reduction of an average Finn demonstrates how handprint thinking can be a natural extension of footprint reduction analyses. We find that there is a diversity of possible handprint assessments that have the potential to encourage doing good. Their common foundation is “handprint thinking.”

Corporate water stewardship, i.e., proactive water-using corporate engagement in water management and governance, has been hailed as a solution to global water challenges. However, it has also aroused criticism and skepticism, as it has been feared to lead to private securitization of resources and institutional capture especially in locations with weak public institutions and regulation. This article tackles this “prisoner’s dilemma” of corporate water stewardship by exploring when and how it is legitimate considering the private nature of corporations and their power to change water management and governance processes and their outcomes. An analytical framework is constructed based on a literature review and applied into a case-study of corporations active in water stewardship initiatives in South Africa. The case-study findings suggest that the stewardship agenda would benefit from (1) a more open acknowledgement of power asymmetries between corporations and other parties; (2) more careful and systematic evaluation and enhancement of legitimacy of corporations to engage in public good and common pool water resources in the first place; and (3) stewardship actions should support stronger public institutions and especially civil society to equally participate. The research community is called in to scrutinize and facilitate the multi-actor water governance processes, which include corporations to assist in the effort.