Project Spotlight

The Project in the Spotlight is a feature of this webpage where we highlight a new or ongoing water quality projects of interest to the GEOAquaWatch Community. If you would like us to feature your project please contact Merrie Beth Neely


Globe WQ – Global Water Quality and Analysis Platform

Globe WQ is a pilot project to create a Global Water Quality and Analysis Platform.   It is the goal of the cooperative project GlobeWQ together with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to ensure that measurement data on water quality all over the world are recorded and analyzed more reliably than before by using standardized procedures. To this end, in-situ measurement data is linked with remote-sensing data and computer models. The worldwide information on water quality should be processed on a web-based platform in such a way that it can be used for decisions and measures down to the regional level.

The main goals of GlobeWQ are thus:

  • to develop, test and – in exemplary ways – apply an integrated and cross-scale analysis and evaluation methodology for water quality of surface and groundwaters;
  • to provide novel data synthesis of in-situ measured, modelled and remote sensing based information;
  • to identify existing and developing threats to water security with focus on water quality.

GlobeWQ is embedded in the World Water Quality Alliance led by the UN Environment Programme with the challenging task to compile a World Water Quality Assessment by 2023 on current and future freshwater quality. The GlobeWQ project is a direct continuation of the pre-study that resulted in a snapshot of world’s water quality  and a roadmap for a worldwide assessment. The GlobeWQ project is associated to the BMBF funding measure Water as a Global Resource (GRoW).

Find out more about the pilot on the Fact Sheet.