Commitment combines advanced data management and visualization technologies with on-the-ground narratives about global groundwater
- Intensifying global water challenges demand nimble responses based on dynamic data and storytelling
- “Our capacity to respond is in doubt unless we dig deep into the connections and combine the best of reporting, data gathering, and participation.”
— Lars Björk, CEO, Qlik
TRAVERSE CITY and NEW YORK (Sept 28) — As the world faces increasingly severe stresses on water availability and quality, the need for clear, timely, relevant information on water resources has never been more urgent.
Circle of Blue, in collaboration with Qlik, a leader in big-data and visualization, and with other partners — including Twitter, Columbia University Water Center, Pacific Institute, and the University of California – Irvine — today announced development of a comprehensive global groundwater data dashboard that leverages the Qlik analytics platform to unite historical big data and real-time information with on-the-ground reportage and public engagement.
The union of cumulative technology and defining narratives will help inform important water decisions such as allocation, policy development, crisis response, and infrastructure improvements.
The data dashboard and platform was announced today as a commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) annual meeting in New York. Established in 2005, the Clinton Global Initiative and the commitments made by CGI partners create and implement solutions to the world’s most pressing challenges.
One of the world’s greatest challenges is water supply and quality.
“We face a time when climate change is stressing our water, food and energy systems, causing billions of dollars of disruptions and testing human and ecological resilience globally,” said J. Carl Ganter, managing director of Circle of Blue and member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Water. “In the current era of mass data streaming and unprecedented data flow, we simply cannot afford to keep the realities of today’s environmental challenges locked in static documents or silo’d collections.”
Ganter received the 2012 Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award for combining compelling narratives with strategic data.
According to The World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2015, “water crises” rank as the global risk of greatest urgency and are emerging as serious threats to people, business, the environment, and peace across the world. Groundwater supplies in most of the world’s major aquifers are being used far faster than they are being replenished, which makes these dry, food-producing regions more vulnerable to drought, environmental stress, and social disruption.
The world’s demand for fresh water is growing while water scarcity is upending energy production, triggering food shortages, hampering economic development, and threatening political stability. The often convulsive disruptions are felt from the United States, which lost a full point of GDP in 2012 due to severe drought, to Asia, the Middle East, and South America, where drought and floods triggered political unrest and civic upheaval.
“Qlik is proud to be joining CGI and our partners to lead an initiative to support some of the most important decisions facing our planet around the availability or lack of fresh water.” said Lars Björk, CEO at Qlik. “Our capacity to respond is in doubt unless we dig deep into the connections and combine the best of reporting, data gathering, and participation to understand the whole story of the challenges and responses. We need to activate the best, most creative thinking to understand and respond. We’re excited to help identify opportunities to advance the solutions to the challenges facing our world.”
Qlik’s CGI commitment partners include Circle of Blue, Columbia Water Center, University of California Irvine, Pacific Institute, and Twitter, which will provide social media support, and others.
About Circle of Blue
Circle of Blue deploys its teams of leading journalists, photographers, data experts, field researchers, and designers to report from the front lines of the world’s resource crises, with a core focus on water. Circle of Blue received the Rockefeller Foundation Centennial Innovation Award for its breakthrough, feedback-loop model that combines on-the-ground reporting, data collection, analysis, design, and convening. Circle of Blue is a nonprofit affiliate of the Pacific Institute.
For more information, contact catalyst@99.198.125.162/~circl731
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For more information, please contact:
Media Contact
Laura Herd
Circle of Blue
Phone: +1-202-351-6870 x105
Twitter: @circleofblue
About Qlik
Qlik (NASDAQ: QLIK) is a leader in visual analytics. Its portfolio of products meets customers’ growing needs from reporting and self-service visual analysis to guided, embedded and custom analytics. Approximately 36,000 customers rely on Qlik solutions to gain meaning out of information from varied sources, exploring the hidden relationships within data that lead to insights that ignite good ideas. Headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania, Qlik has offices around the world with more than 1700 partners covering more than 100 countries.
Media Contact
Amanda Keane
617-520-7260
