User's Guide to the Pardee RAND Food-Energy-Water Index

The interactive Pardee RAND Food-Energy-Water Index allows users to explore and compare countries around the world in terms of both their level of development and their capacity for development. For more information on how we developed the index, read our technical documentation.

1. 

   When you first visit the interactive index, you will be on the "Map the Data" tab. You will see a world map that is color-coded according to FEW Index rankings (a ratio of each country's food, water, and energy accessibility and availability).

2. 

   Hover over a country and you'll see a pop-up box showing basic data.

3. 

   Click on the country to select it (the rest of the countries will be grayed out); country-specific data will appear on the right, and each of the other tabs in the index will highlight that country as well.

4. 

   To see the specific data that make up the index, click on the Plot the Data link (either in the pop-up box next to the country, or in the pop-up box next to the data point of interest on the right) or simply go to the "Plot the Data (FEW)" tab; the country's circle will be highlighted and the rest of the countries grayed out. Similarly, click on the View the Data link in the pop-up box and the "View the Data" tab will appear.

5. 

   If you have a country selected and go to the View the Data tab, the country's line of data will be highlighted and the others grayed out. (Note: you may need to scroll down the list to find the country you've selected.) The countries are listed alphabetically by Human Development Index (HDI) Tier.

6. 

   The interactive index offers four Plot tabs. In the first, "Plot the Data (FEW)," the size of the circles indicates the country's Food sub-index. The Water sub-index is plotted on the X-axis and the Energy sub-index is plotted on the Y-axis. The color of the circle indicates the country's placement on the overall FEW Index.

7. 

   The other three Plot the Data tabs show only one sub-index each (Food, Water, or Energy). The Food and Energy tabs display the accessibility of that resource on the X-axis and the availability of the resource on the Y-axis. The color in each case indicates the country's placement on that particular sub-index.

8. 

   The tab for the Water sub-index is similar to the FEW plot, with the size of the circle having a distinct meaning: in this case, the adaptive capacity of the country's water supply. (As with Food and Energy, the accessibility and availability of Water are plotted, respectively, on the X and Y axes.)

9. 

   Returning to the "Map the Data" tab, you will also see that you can modify the shading to focus specifically on one of the sub-indices. For example, if you are interested in development opportunities that pertain to energy, select the Energy Sub-index. The countries color-coded in yellow, orange, or red are those in greatest need of development in this area.