June 2014: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has added a wastewater section to its AQUASTAT database, which provides data on the availability and use of municipal wastewater. The database combines information on municipal wastewater production, collection, treatment, discharge and direct use, including for agriculture and irrigation.

“The aim of this global database is to provide the best available national-level data,” says Javier Mateo- Sagasta, International Water Management Institute (IWMI). IWMI and the CGIAR Research Program on Water Land Ecosystems partnered with FAO’s Land and Water Division to create the AQUASTAT wastewater section. FAO and IWMI reviewed data from databases, national reports, peer-reviewed publications and information from national experts, among other material, to generate information for the database. All new data goes through a detailed review and validation process to ensure consistency and reliability.

AQUASTAT focuses on the national annual volume of municipal wastewater, in contrast to existing databases on sanitation and wastewater that focus on the percentage of sanitation coverage or pollution loads, according to IWMI. FAO and IWMI decided to focus on volume to facilitate the integration of data into existing national water resource and water use accounts. [IWMI Press Release] [AQUASTAT Wastewater Database] [Wastewater Methodology]