MUISKA: multidimensional approach for risk assessment of an intermittent water system

Despite its vast reach, the term water security remains challenging to ground into actionable daily water risk scenarios. From its introduction 20 years ago by the ministerial Declaration of The Hague on Water, to its adoption by development actors, water professionals, academia, and governments–various theories, methodologies, and approaches have been published. Failures to advance SDG6 signal a clear need for an approach that includes multiple water-security risks at basin level to improve water and land planning. Here we present MUISKA, MUltidimensional rISK Assessment, an approach to assess and compare multiple water-security risks at basin level. In this paper, we explore the development of the first three steps of this approach by the identification of water service perceptions using surveys in Cajibío, a municipality highly affected by the armed conflict in Colombia. The MUISKA approach allowed us the identification of intermittent water supply as an important and complex water security issue in Cajibío. Based on multiple-actor participation, systems perspective, and notions of hydrocomplexity, MUISKA facilitated the documentation and assessment of complex and competing water-security scenarios.