Water — Meeting the Global Water Challenge
Water

Meeting the Global Water Challenge Through Total Innovation.

From ageing infrastructure, regulatory pressure, climate resilience, the water sector faces challenges that can't be solved by incremental improvement alone. Everyday Wazoku helps to solve these critical challenges by finding, evaluating, and developing breakthrough solutions for governments, utilities, businesses and NGOs.

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The Challenge

Water is the most under-innovated critical resource on Earth.

Water is the most under-innovated critical resource on Earth. And water underpins every sector of the global economy, yet the systems that manage it are under extraordinary pressure.

By 2030, global freshwater demand will exceed supply by 40%, yet water technology receives just 1–2% of climate tech investment despite underpinning 60% of global GDP. The innovation challenges are significant. Conventional treatment cannot remove forever chemicals. Aging pipes lose 126 billion cubic metres per year. Desalination still consumes 3–4× the thermodynamic minimum energy. And the digital transformation that reshaped energy systems has barely touched water.

The stakes are existential. Since 1990, global freshwater resources have declined 58%. Twenty-five countries housing one-quarter of humanity face extreme water stress annually. The Ogallala Aquifer – supporting $20 billion in U.S. agriculture – could be 70% depleted within 50 years. Himalayan glaciers are disappearing 65% faster than in the previous decade, threatening 1.9 billion people downstream. These are not distant projections; they are measured trajectories that only innovation can bend.

The problems are deeply technical, leakage reduction, nutrient removal, energy efficiency, biosolids management, PFAS treatment. These are challenges that cut across disciplines, geographies, and organisations – and solving them will depend on new approaches to finding and connecting the right expertise. Yet most organisations innovate in isolation. Innovation programmes generate ideas but struggle to connect them to operational reality.

Wazoku believes there is a better way to meet these challenges.

40%

By 2030, freshwater demand exceeds supply

58%

Decline in global freshwater resources since 1990

1–2%

of climate tech investment reaches water despite underpinning 60% of global GDP

Wazoku brings a world of experience

Open the problem to the world

Through Innocentive, governments, utilities, businesses and NGOs can post their hardest technical challenges to 1,000,000+ solvers across chemistry, engineering, materials science, biology, and more. Many breakthroughs in water treatment have come from adjacent fields and Innocentive is purpose-built to find them.

Build a living innovation ecosystem

Wazoku.ai gives water companies a single platform to manage their entire innovation landscape; scouting startups, engaging academic partners, running internal ideation, governing portfolios, and tracking value from concept to deployment.

Deliver measurable outcomes

Our managed service designs and runs innovation programmes tailored to water sector challenges, with xV value tracking that shows regulators, boards, and customers exactly what innovation is delivering.

Building the global water ecosystem

International Water Resources Association

International Water Resources Association (IWRA)

Wazoku is a graded member of the International Water Resources Association (IWRA), a non-profit collective to unite the world's water resource professionals. This working forum is dedicated to achieve and further the 2030 agenda and UN SDGs, hosting events (World Water Congresses), specific projects (e.g. Smart Water Cities), and bringing together interdisciplinary working groups to address the industry's challenges. The IWRA is also a listed partner of UN Water.

Visit IWRA →
Water Innovation Alliance

Water Innovation Alliance (WIA)

Wazoku is a founding member of the Water Innovation Alliance (WIA), Wazoku helps to connect a network of innovators, startups/scaleups, and incumbent water suppliers to meet, share challenges, and develop together to change the industry. The WIA is also responding to the Ofwat Water Efficiency Fund (WEF) consultation rounds, based on its global expertise and membership's fit to addressing the opportunities in water technologies and approaches.

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Trusted globally

Wazoku has helped a wide range of organisations from government agencies, multinationals, and humanitarian NGOs. They trust Wazoku to address their water-related problems and opportunities. In just the last 12 months alone, Wazoku has:

Crowdsourced approaches for sulfate removal in industrial outflows for the US Steel Corporation

Partnered with the EPA to uncover innovative methods to deal with PCB 'forever chemicals' in conjunction with the Housatonic Rest of River remediation plan

Managed the US$10m Global Prize for Innovation in Desalination 2024, sourcing 200+ proposals for desalination, including zero-liquid discharge, from 37 countries.

Across our 25-year history, Wazoku has also assisted in hundreds of water related challenges.

The 2026 Water Innovation Report

Download the full innovation map.

We have mapped the specific innovation challenges reshaping the global water sector into a single 18-page report, drawing on 2024–2026 data and structured into six parts:

Download the report (PDF, 18 pages)

Part I

Crumbling pipes and a $56 billion annual funding gap

Infrastructure decay, non-revenue water, AI-powered leak detection, and trenchless rehabilitation.

Part II

PFAS, microplastics, and the emerging contaminant emergency

Forever chemicals, pharmaceutical residues, advanced oxidation, and graphene membranes.

Part III

Desalination is scaling, but brine remains the Achilles heel

Reverse osmosis economics, brine valorisation, and the $119 million XPRIZE Water Scarcity challenge.

Part IV

Water scarcity, groundwater depletion, and the rise of reuse

The UN's declaration of water bankruptcy, direct potable reuse, and nature-based solutions.

Part V

Digital transformation and the cybersecurity blind spot

Smart water networks, digital twins, and the escalating threat to SCADA systems.

Part VI

Regulation, pricing, and the global equity gap

The 14-year innovation adoption cycle, $456 billion in annual subsidies, and the 2.1 billion people still without safely managed water.

In each section, the focus is not on what is politically or socially difficult, but on what is technically unsolved, economically unviable at scale, or systemically unintegrated — the problems where structured open innovation makes the largest difference.

Deep Water Experience

Water represents one of Wazoku's most diverse and impactful sectors, spanning drinking water purification, arsenic detection, rainwater harvesting, desalination, wastewater treatment, and infrastructure protection. Challenges have been posted by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, EPA, Rockefeller Foundation, Habitat for Humanity, U.S. Steel, and Saudi Water Corporation (SWC).

Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI)

Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI)

One of the most celebrated water related success stories is the OSRI challenge.

Nearly two decades after the Exxon Valdez disaster, 26,000 gallons of crude remained in Prince William Sound, frozen into a viscous mass that resisted pumping. OSRI posted the problem on Innocentive with a $20,000 prize. John Davis, a chemist from central Illinois with zero oil industry experience, solved it within hours by adapting a concrete industry vibration tool—a long pole inserted into recovery barges that prevented oil from solidifying. OSRI's Research Program Manager Scott Pegau acknowledged the organisation would never have found this solution through its regular request-for-proposal process. All four OSRI challenges were eventually solved.

Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity

Humanitarian Water Access

In April 2021, Habitat for Humanity posted an "Affordable Water Harvesting for Low-Income Households" challenge, targeting Mexico's water shortages affecting one-third of homes.

From 55 submissions, Spanish civil engineer Jesús Chico Fernández won the $25,000 prize in January 2022 with a device combining solar air bubbles, ultraviolet light, and carbon filtration for rainwater purification. The solution was made freely available to nonprofits worldwide under non-exclusive licensing terms.

Water Sector Challenges

Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI)

Oil Spill Recovery Institute (OSRI)

Habitat for Humanity

Habitat for Humanity

Saudi Water Authority (SWCC)

Saudi Water Authority (SWCC)

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation + EPA + Xylem

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation + EPA + Xylem

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

U.S. EPA

U.S. EPA

Rockefeller Foundation

Rockefeller Foundation

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Whether you're a water utility, government agency, or NGO, our team understands the technical depth of water sector challenges. Let's explore what open innovation can unlock for your organisation.

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