Davy Vanham

Senior Researcher - Integrated Modeling and Assessment


Davy Vanham has over 25 years of experience in local to global water management. He has worked in both the private sector (for engineering consultants) and the public sector (universities and the European Commission) in Austria, Belgium, Ecuador, India, Italy, South Africa and Sri Lanka. His experiences range from theoretical and applied research on the science-policy interface to planning of water engineering constructions such as fish passage facilities and flood infrastructure. He has multiple years experience in project management, fieldwork, resource mobilization and organizing international expert consultations.

Vanham has advised organizations such as the European Commission, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), World Health Organization (WHO) and Inter-American Development Bank (IADB). He worked for nine years at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Italy — the in-house science service of the European Commission — on water management. He was embedded in cross-cutting and collaborative research projects such as the water-energy-food-ecosystem nexus (WEFE) projects for Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa.

As a scientist, Vanham has an extensive publication record on water management, including a number of articles in leading scientific journals such as Nature Sustainability, Nature Food and The Lancet Planetary Health. His work has been featured by BBC News, Bloomberg, La Repubblica, Le Monde, Reuters, Times of India, South China Morning Post, among others. He also has several years of experience in visual science communication and as an independent photojournalist.


Current projects


Latest news for Davy Vanham

Global water use for crops surged by nine per cent in a decade

CropGBWater, a new open access tool by IWMI highlights growing pressure on food and water systems worldwide ...

Open access model and data on blue and green water consumption of crops to help close water data gap

IWMI researchers report a 9% increase in global crop water consumption between 2010-2020, adding further pressure on already strained water resources ...

Closing the African data gap

New open access database is valuable for sustainable development in the energy and water sectors ...

Latest publications by Davy Vanham

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Dataset

Global spatially explicit crop water consumption shows an overall increase of 9% for 46 agricultural crops from 2010 to 2020: data and software

October 6th, 2025
Chukalla, A.; Mekonnen, M.; Gunathilake, Dahami; Wolkeba, F. T.; Gunasekara, Bhawani; Vanham, Davy
Open Access
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Journal Article

Global spatially explicit crop water consumption shows an overall increase of 9% for 46 agricultural crops from 2010 to 2020

Nature Portfolio | October, 2025
Chukalla, A. D.; Mekonnen, M. M.; Gunathilake, Dahami; Wolkeba, F. T.; Gunasekara, Bhawani; Vanham, Davy
Open Access
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Journal Article

Spatially distributed freshwater demand for electricity in Africa

Royal Society of Chemistry | May 31st, 2024
Gerbens-Leenes, P. W.; Vaca-Jiménez, S. D.; Holmatov, Bunyod; Vanham, Davy
Open Access

All publications by this author

Contact

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Languages

English, Dutch (mother tongue), French, German, Afrikaans, Italian (basic), Spanish (basic)

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