Member Spotlight: Uncharted Waters

Uncharted Waters is building a Digital Twin of the global food system. A tool that will be used to assess the impact of climate and non-climate drivers on water resources and food production in real time!

For this segment, we speak with Christian Siderius, Founder and Director at Uncharted Waters about their mission and their involvement in the first cohort of Subak Australia. Christian grew up in the Netherlands and has over 15 years of experience, providing research and consultancy on climate and water risks around the world.

We dive deeper into the data sources that are used to build this real-time Digital Twin and learn more about how it will be used to predict the impact that climate events have on our food and water production.

1.Tell us a bit about the story behind Uncharted Waters and what you are hoping to achieve in the food and water security space.

Uncharted Waters emerged from research development at various institutes – Wageningen University in the Netherlands, the highest ranked Agricultural Uni, and the Grantham Research Institute of the London School of Economics. Much of our work involved analysing trade-offs and scenarios, for instance on future climate impacts, but I got somewhat frustrated by the difficulty of reacting in time to urgent questions, for example during extreme events or just after disasters when there is often a window of opportunity to grasp people’s attention.  

People, journalists, government officials come to you and ask for clarification or advice but often the reply is - yes, we have been working on this but usually simulations need to be redone, models updated with new data and there is always the struggle for time and funding. So then answers would take a couple of months, if not years. By then, policy attention has shifted elsewhere. 

At the same time, by now, data on rainfall, temperature and many other earth indicators are made available almost in real time. We saw an opportunity to use our existing tools, but rewire them so we could make use of these real-time data sources, and create a model system that can continuously be updated, and continuously provides information on what is going on.

The pandemic created the final push, an interesting case in regard to food supply chain disruption but also a moment several people involved, among myself, could take a step back and assess what to do next in our career. 

And so, Uncharted Waters was founded as a not-for-profit, with the aim to provide policy makers, businesses and society with timely information. We hope this will increase support for climate action and build a resilient society capable of responding to our water and food security needs. People need to know the causes of things in order to react, plan and prepare. A novel Climate-Food Security Risk Indicator is the first product planned!

2.Can you further explain to us the novelty of your Digital Twin and how it aims to provide data in real time?

It is novel because there are currently - we believe - no other tools or models available that assess the global water and food system in real time, combining both supply and demand of food through international trade, and covering all major crops and the substitution between them. 

Our use of a process based hydrology- crop model as a basis also means we have a seamless link between historic and current conditions, and future projections so we can track, compare and assess. 

Others tend to focus on forecasting yields of specific crops, or use remote sensing over specific areas to gather detailed insights of current conditions. There are some very exciting developments in these fields but in our integrated food system, risks don’t stay local, and shortages in one crop will affect demand for another. Climate risks increase in regions of conflict and poverty. We are entering a world of polycrisis where disparate shocks interact so that the whole is worse than the sum of the part. These important secondary or cascading risks are often overlooked and we can address them. 

3.What data sources are you using to compile the Digital Twin?

Our two main sources of data are near real-time simulated weather data, which we use to simulate crop growth and water usage, and historic data on crop production, trade and food consumption to derive conversion and resistance factors of our current food system from. We basically process almost the complete database of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) which contains data for all countries, to calibrate our production and trade models, amongst others using Machine Learning.

We then integrate this information with the latest climate data from the ECMWF to estimate current water resources and crop yields, and are also in the process of incorporating the seasonal forecasts for an estimate of yields in the next season. And so, what we do is estimate food production now and for the next 6 months, and go beyond what is publicly available. For example, there is generally a lag of one to two years before FAO data are verified and put online. We also track how much water is used to grow this food, and how sustainable that usage is.

A range of other data is used as well; on trade distances between sea ports, GDP, and cold storage capacity in countries. There are still lots of opportunities to improve our models and we are keeping a close eye on the latest scientific findings.

Our main aim isn’t to make the most accurate food production estimates, but rather to build data models that link food production with current weather events, which is something that is not so easily done with production or trade data alone. With a good model, one can then extrapolate and analyse what would happen in 5 years time or 20 years time. I think that linking the impact of weather events now, to their potential impact in a changing world is important.

4.The promises of Uncharted Waters are significant, especially when climate change poses a considerable threat to global food security. What have the support and investment opportunities been like for you since you created your not-for-profit?

We are just starting - although drawing from almost two decades of experience with data analysis and simulation tools – and the most important support this year has been the Subak Accelerator fund. This has allowed us to concentrate on product and company development, and step away for a moment from project-based funding. The funding, the mentor sessions and individual talks have helped a lot in shaping a business-oriented mindset, with a focus on products, and more clear ideas about the expectations of future growth.

We hope and expect that through Subak connections we can expand our network and potential partnerships in Australia, where we are based. I do certainly see opportunities with other Subak cohort members such as Open Corridor and have had helpful conversations with founders from other climate start-ups such as Michal Nachmany from Climate Policy Radar in the UK. They are a step ahead, in terms of maturity as a company but, with a somewhat similar (research) background, these have been very interesting conversations to discuss pitfalls and opportunities.

We believe we are creating something unique, and highly relevant, not just to society, but also for businesses in the agri-food domain. We are currently exploring the relevance of our approach with a large beer multinational and a global organic fruit supplier. It is a start; to grow further we need a lot more investments.

We also draw from existing cooperation with universities, which helps in the development of the tool and also partly in terms of funding, especially by building joint projects. I believe in cooperation, being part of a network of companies or groups of developers, to move forward. Each has their niche, their motivation, often highly specialised skills, and contacts which can bring support. 

5.With all the extreme floods happening worldwide, notably in Pakistan, how will Uncharted Waters play a role in future risk mitigation?

We want to become the go-to data initiative tracking climate impacts to water and food security, and provide information and insight stories while people’s attention is still focussed on the issue, like now, after the floods in Pakistan. An unfolding catastrophe is often a result of a combination of factors, with local impacts such as extreme rainfall coinciding with stresses elsewhere. 

In the case of the Pakistan floods, high food prices in the global market are aggravating the situation. Secondary effects will depend on the severity and how important the affected area is for food production in the country/region/globally. Soon there will be the question about the reconstruction. 

Is this going to happen more often? 

Is Pakistan on track to meet future food demands of a growing population? 

At the moment there is too much water. But are water resources sufficient given projected changes in glacier melt runoff and rainfall patterns?

We have a lot of experience on the drivers and changes especially in this important region. We believe it is important to link what is happening now to how this might shape the future.

Keep updated with Uncharted Waters here: https://www.unchartedwatersresearch.org/