Angie Gomez Pizarro is a leading force in connecting Danida fellows within the Danida Alumni Network Argentina and beyond. We asked her to share her story about the development of AquaLab, a digital water footprint calculator, and how schools across Buenos Aires and Danida fellows around the world contributed their perspectives and expertise to bring the initiative to life. Here is what she had to tell us.
By Angie Gomez Pizarro
Water is essential for sustaining life, yet we do not often take this into consideration in the choices we make in our daily lives. Most people turn on a tap, choose a meal or buy a product without thinking about the water that was used to provide us with our choices.
At the heart of my work in education and sustainability is a simple conviction: lasting change begins when people see themselves as both part of a challenge and part of its solution. During my Danida fellowship in Copenhagen, this conviction took a new direction through The Water Library, an action plan to strengthen water literacy in schools in Buenos Aires. It left me with a simple question: how could we move beyond providing information and instead create learning experiences that make water more visible, meaningful and actionable in people's everyday lives?
Through conversations with Danida fellows from different parts of the world, it became clear that, while our realities differ, we share a common challenge: helping people understand and value their relationship with water. AquaLab emerged from this question and this exchange.
AquaLab is a calculator that allows you to measure your water footprint in a free, simple, and secure way. This application allows you to measure your water footprint based on your direct and indirect water consumption and, at the end of the calculation, it provides you with a personalised report that you can download, including tips on how to improve your footprint.
In this way, AquaLab was designed to transform the technical concept of a ‘water footprint’ into a learning experience that helps people understand the invisible amount of water used to deliver our everyday choices, thereby turning awareness into action.
Supported by the Danida Fellows Networkers’ Grant, AquaLab was shaped through surveys, conversations and exchanges with fellows and experts from different disciplines and geographical regions. Their contributions were not only technical perspectives on water management but also educational and cultural insights into how people perceive and value water. What emerged was much more than a calculator: it was a shared effort to make water matter in people's everyday lives.
Schools in Buenos Aires also played a crucial role. Real school projects informed the educational design, and even AquaLab's visual identity was inspired by work developed by students and teachers at a public school. In doing so, the project reaffirmed that schools are not only users of sustainability solutions; they can also be producers of knowledge, creativity and environmental innovation.
Today, AquaLab is being incorporated into learning experiences that connect water, sustainability and global citizenship. At the same time, its open-access design has enabled educators, students and sustainability practitioners from different countries to explore and use the tool, extending the global Danida Fellows Water Community that inspired its creation.
Just seven months after its launch, AquaLab has been used by more than 315,000 people across 41 countries. Its growing use in classrooms and communities far beyond Buenos Aires is a reminder that the need to make water more visible, meaningful and actionable transcends borders and resonates with many different contexts. AquaLab remains an evolving resource and an open invitation to reflect on our relationship with water, to learn from one another, and to recognise that each of us can be both part of the challenge and, more importantly, part of the solution.
Visit and explore AquaLab here: https://goes.bue.edu.ar/cg/huella_hidrica/en/index.html.
Angie Gomez Pizarro works for Argentina’s Ministry of Education, leading sustainable development education programmes in the City of Buenos Aires. She participated in Danida Fellowship Centre’s organisational change management course in 2023.
