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case study of communication

  • 16 Feb 2024
  • Research & Ideas

Is Your Workplace Biased Against Introverts?

Extroverts are more likely to express their passion outwardly, giving them a leg up when it comes to raises and promotions, according to research by Jon Jachimowicz. Introverts are just as motivated and excited about their work, but show it differently. How can managers challenge their assumptions?

case study of communication

  • 06 Nov 2023

Did You Hear What I Said? How to Listen Better

People who seem like they're paying attention often aren't—even when they're smiling and nodding toward the speaker. Research by Alison Wood Brooks, Hanne Collins, and colleagues reveals just how prone the mind is to wandering, and sheds light on ways to stay tuned in to the conversation.

case study of communication

  • 31 Oct 2023

Checking Your Ethics: Would You Speak Up in These 3 Sticky Situations?

Would you complain about a client who verbally abuses their staff? Would you admit to cutting corners on your work? The answers aren't always clear, says David Fubini, who tackles tricky scenarios in a series of case studies and offers his advice from the field.

case study of communication

  • 24 Jul 2023

Part-Time Employees Want More Hours. Can Companies Tap This ‘Hidden’ Talent Pool?

Businesses need more staff and employees need more work, so what's standing in the way? A report by Joseph Fuller and colleagues shows how algorithms and inflexibility prevent companies from accessing valuable talent in a long-term shortage.

case study of communication

  • 23 Jun 2023

This Company Lets Employees Take Charge—Even with Life and Death Decisions

Dutch home health care organization Buurtzorg avoids middle management positions and instead empowers its nurses to care for patients as they see fit. Tatiana Sandino and Ethan Bernstein explore how removing organizational layers and allowing employees to make decisions can boost performance.

case study of communication

  • 24 Jan 2023

Passion at Work Is a Good Thing—But Only If Bosses Know How to Manage It

Does showing passion mean doing whatever it takes to get the job done? Employees and managers often disagree, says research by Jon Jachimowicz. He offers four pieces of advice for leaders who yearn for more spirit and intensity at their companies.

case study of communication

  • 10 Jan 2023

How to Live Happier in 2023: Diversify Your Social Circle

People need all kinds of relationships to thrive: partners, acquaintances, colleagues, and family. Research by Michael Norton and Alison Wood Brooks offers new reasons to pick up the phone and reconnect with that old friend from home.

case study of communication

  • 15 Nov 2022

Why TikTok Is Beating YouTube for Eyeball Time (It’s Not Just the Dance Videos)

Quirky amateur video clips might draw people to TikTok, but its algorithm keeps them watching. John Deighton and Leora Kornfeld explore the factors that helped propel TikTok ahead of established social platforms, and where it might go next.

case study of communication

  • 03 Nov 2022

Feeling Separation Anxiety at Your Startup? 5 Tips to Soothe These Growing Pains

As startups mature and introduce more managers, early employees may lose the easy closeness they once had with founders. However, with transparency and healthy boundaries, entrepreneurs can help employees weather this transition and build trust, says Julia Austin.

case study of communication

  • 15 Sep 2022

Looking For a Job? Some LinkedIn Connections Matter More Than Others

Debating whether to connect on LinkedIn with that more senior executive you met at that conference? You should, says new research about professional networks by Iavor Bojinov and colleagues. That person just might help you land your next job.

case study of communication

  • 08 Sep 2022

Gen Xers and Millennials, It’s Time To Lead. Are You Ready?

Generation X and Millennials—eagerly waiting to succeed Baby Boom leaders—have the opportunity to bring more collaboration and purpose to business. In the book True North: Emerging Leader Edition, Bill George offers advice for the next wave of CEOs.

case study of communication

  • 05 Aug 2022

Why People Crave Feedback—and Why We’re Afraid to Give It

How am I doing? Research by Francesca Gino and colleagues shows just how badly employees want to know. Is it time for managers to get over their discomfort and get the conversation going at work?

case study of communication

  • 23 Jun 2022

All Those Zoom Meetings May Boost Connection and Curb Loneliness

Zoom fatigue became a thing during the height of the pandemic, but research by Amit Goldenberg shows how virtual interactions can provide a salve for isolation. What does this mean for remote and hybrid workplaces?

case study of communication

  • 13 Jun 2022

Extroverts, Your Colleagues Wish You Would Just Shut Up and Listen

Extroverts may be the life of the party, but at work, they're often viewed as phony and self-centered, says research by Julian Zlatev and colleagues. Here's how extroverts can show others that they're listening, without muting themselves.

case study of communication

  • 24 May 2022

Career Advice for Minorities and Women: Sharing Your Identity Can Open Doors

Women and people of color tend to minimize their identities in professional situations, but highlighting who they are often forces others to check their own biases. Research by Edward Chang and colleagues.

case study of communication

  • 12 May 2022

Why Digital Is a State of Mind, Not Just a Skill Set

You don't have to be a machine learning expert to manage a successful digital transformation. In fact, you only need 30 percent fluency in a handful of technical topics, say Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi in their book, The Digital Mindset.

case study of communication

  • 08 Feb 2022

Silos That Work: How the Pandemic Changed the Way We Collaborate

A study of 360 billion emails shows how remote work isolated teams, but also led to more intense communication within siloed groups. Will these shifts outlast the pandemic? Research by Tiona Zuzul and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

case study of communication

  • Cold Call Podcast

What’s Next for Nigerian Production Studio EbonyLife Media?

After more than 20 years in the media industry in the UK and Nigeria, EbonyLife Media CEO Mo Abudu is considering several strategic changes for her media company’s future. Will her mission to tell authentic African stories to the world be advanced by distributing films and TV shows direct to customers? Or should EbonyLife instead distribute its content through third-party streaming services, like Netflix? Assistant Professor Andy Wu discusses Abudu’s plans for her company in his case, EbonyLife Media. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

case study of communication

  • 11 Jan 2022

Feeling Seen: What to Say When Your Employees Are Not OK

Pandemic life continues to take its toll. Managers who let down their guard and acknowledge their employees' emotions can ease distress and build trust, says research by Julian Zlatev and colleagues. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

case study of communication

  • 04 Jan 2022

Scrap the Big New Year's Resolutions. Make 6 Simple Changes Instead.

Self-improvement doesn't need to be painful, especially during a pandemic. Rather than set yet another gym goal, look inward, retrain your brain, and get outside, says Hirotaka Takeuchi. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

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1. WHAT IS TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION?

1.4 Case Study: The Cost of Poor Communication

No one knows exactly how much poor communication costs business, industry and government each year, but estimates suggest billions.  In fact, a recent estimate claims that the cost in the U.S. alone are close to $4 billion annually! [1] Poorly-worded or inefficient emails, careless reading or listening to instructions, documents that go unread due to poor design, hastily presenting inaccurate information, sloppy proofreading — all of these examples result in inevitable costs. The problem is that these costs aren’t usually included on the corporate balance sheet at the end of each year; if they are not properly or clearly defined, the problems remain unsolved.

You may have seen the Project Management Tree Cartoon before ( Figure 1.4.1 ); it has been used and adapted widely to illustrate the perils of poor communication during a project.

Different interpretations of how to design a tree swing by different members of a team and communication failures can lead to problems during the project.

The waste caused by imprecisely worded regulations or instructions, confusing emails, long-winded memos, ambiguously written contracts, and other examples of poor communication is not as easily identified as the losses caused by a bridge collapse or a flood. But the losses are just as real—in reduced productivity, inefficiency, and lost business. In more personal terms, the losses are measured in wasted time, work, money, and ultimately, professional recognition. In extreme cases, losses can be measured in property damage, injuries, and even deaths.

The following “case studies” show how poor communications can have real world costs and consequences. For example, consider the “ Comma Quirk ” in the Rogers Contract that cost $2 million. [3]   A small error in spelling a company name cost £8.8 million. [4]   Examine Edward Tufte’s discussion of the failed PowerPoint presentation that attempted to prevent the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster. [5] The failure of project managers and engineers to communicate effectively resulted in the deadly Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. [6]   The case studies below offer a few more examples that might be less extreme, but much more common.

In small groups, examine each “case” and determine the following:

  • Define the rhetorical situation : Who is communicating to whom about what, how, and why? What was the goal of the communication in each case?
  • Identify the communication error (poor task or audience analysis? Use of inappropriate language or style? Poor organization or formatting of information? Other?)
  • Explain what costs/losses were incurred by this problem.
  • Identify possible solution s or strategies that would have prevented the problem, and what benefits would be derived from implementing solutions or preventing the problem.

Present your findings in a brief, informal presentation to the class.

Exercises adapted from T.M Georges’ Analytical Writing for Science and Technology. [7]

CASE 1: The promising chemist who buried his results

Bruce, a research chemist for a major petro-chemical company, wrote a dense report about some new compounds he had synthesized in the laboratory from oil-refining by-products. The bulk of the report consisted of tables listing their chemical and physical properties, diagrams of their molecular structure, chemical formulas and data from toxicity tests. Buried at the end of the report was a casual speculation that one of the compounds might be a particularly safe and effective insecticide.

Seven years later, the same oil company launched a major research program to find more effective but environmentally safe insecticides. After six months of research, someone uncovered Bruce’s report and his toxicity tests. A few hours of further testing confirmed that one of Bruce’s compounds was the safe, economical insecticide they had been looking for.

Bruce had since left the company, because he felt that the importance of his research was not being appreciated.

CASE 2: The rejected current regulator proposal

The Acme Electric Company worked day and night to develop a new current regulator designed to cut the electric power consumption in aluminum plants by 35%. They knew that, although the competition was fierce, their regulator could be produced more affordably, was more reliable, and worked more efficiently than the competitors’ products.

The owner, eager to capture the market, personally but somewhat hastily put together a 120-page proposal to the three major aluminum manufacturers, recommending that the new Acme regulators be installed at all company plants.

She devoted the first 87 pages of the proposal to the mathematical theory and engineering design behind his new regulator, and the next 32 to descriptions of the new assembly line she planned to set up to produce regulators quickly. Buried in an appendix were the test results that compared her regulator’s performance with present models, and a poorly drawn graph showed the potential cost savings over 3 years.

The proposals did not receive any response. Acme Electric didn’t get the contracts, despite having the best product. Six months later, the company filed for bankruptcy.

CASE 3: The instruction manual the scared customers away

As one of the first to enter the field of office automation, Sagatec Software, Inc. had built a reputation for designing high-quality and user-friendly database and accounting programs for business and industry. When they decided to enter the word-processing market, their engineers designed an effective, versatile, and powerful program that Sagatec felt sure would outperform any competitor.

To be sure that their new word-processing program was accurately documented, Sagatec asked the senior program designer to supervise writing the instruction manual. The result was a thorough, accurate and precise description of every detail of the program’s operation.

When Sagatec began marketing its new word processor, cries for help flooded in from office workers who were so confused by the massive manual that they couldn’t even find out how to get started. Then several business journals reviewed the program and judged it “too complicated” and “difficult to learn.” After an impressive start, sales of the new word processing program plummeted.

Sagatec eventually put out a new, clearly written training guide that led new users step by step through introductory exercises and told them how to find commands quickly. But the rewrite cost Sagatec $350,000, a year’s lead in the market, and its reputation for producing easy-to-use business software.

CASE 4: One garbled memo – 26 baffled phone calls

Joanne supervised 36 professionals in 6 city libraries. To cut the costs of unnecessary overtime, she issued this one-sentence memo to her staff:

After the 36 copies were sent out, Joanne’s office received 26 phone calls asking what the memo meant. What the 10 people who didn’t call about the memo thought is uncertain. It took a week to clarify the new policy.

CASE 5: Big science — Little rhetoric

The following excerpt is from Carl Sagan’s book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, [8] itself both a plea for and an excellent example of clear scientific communication:

The Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) would have been the preeminent instrument on the planet for probing the fine structure of matter and the nature of the early Universe. Its price tag was $10 to $15 billion. It was cancelled by Congress in 1993 after about $2 billion had been spent — a worst of both worlds outcome. But this debate was not, I think, mainly about declining interest in the support of science. Few in Congress understood what modern high-energy accelerators are for. They are not for weapons. They have no practical applications. They are for something that is, worrisomely from the point of view of many, called “the theory of everything.” Explanations that involve entities called quarks, charm, flavor, color, etc., sound as if physicists are being cute. The whole thing has an aura, in the view of at least some Congresspeople I’ve talked to, of “nerds gone wild” — which I suppose is an uncharitable way of describing curiosity-based science. No one asked to pay for this had the foggiest idea of what a Higgs boson is. I’ve read some of the material intended to justify the SSC. At the very end, some of it wasn’t too bad, but there was nothing that really addressed what the project was about on a level accessible to bright but skeptical non-physicists. If physicists are asking for 10 or 15 billion dollars to build a machine that has no practical value, at the very least they should make an extremely serious effort, with dazzling graphics, metaphors, and capable use of the English language, to justify their proposal. More than financial mismanagement, budgetary constraints, and political incompetence, I think this is the key to the failure of the SSC.

CASE 6: The co-op student who mixed up genres

Chris was simultaneously enrolled in a university writing course and working as a co-op student at the Widget Manufacturing plant. As part of his co-op work experience, Chris shadowed his supervisor/mentor on a safety inspection of the plant, and was asked to write up the results of the inspection in a compliance memo . In the same week, Chris’s writing instructor assigned the class to write a narrative essay based on some personal experience. Chris, trying to be efficient, thought that the plant visit experience could provide the basis for his essay assignment as well.

He wrote the essay first, because he was used to writing essays and was pretty good at it. He had never even seen a compliance memo, much less written one, so was not as confident about that task. He began the essay like this:

On June 1, 2018, I conducted a safety audit of the Widget Manufacturing plant in New City. The purpose of the audit was to ensure that all processes and activities in the plant adhere to safety and handling rules and policies outlined in the Workplace Safety Handbook and relevant government regulations. I was escorted on a 3-hour tour of the facility by…

Chris finished the essay and submitted it to his writing instructor. He then revised the essay slightly, keeping the introduction the same, and submitted it to his co-op supervisor. He “aced” the essay, getting an A grade, but his supervisor told him that the report was unacceptable and would have to be rewritten – especially the beginning, which should have clearly indicated whether or not the plant was in compliance with safety regulations. Chris was aghast! He had never heard of putting the “conclusion” at the beginning . He missed the company softball game that Saturday so he could rewrite the report to the satisfaction of his supervisor.

  • J. Bernoff, "Bad writing costs business billions," Daily Beast , Oct. 16, 2016 [Online]. Available:  https://www.thedailybeast.com/bad-writing-costs-businesses-billions?ref=scroll ↵
  • J. Reiter, "The 'Project Cartoon' root cause," Medium, 2 July 2019. Available: https://medium.com/@thx2001r/the-project-cartoon-root-cause-5e82e404ec8a ↵
  • G. Robertson, “Comma quirk irks Rogers,” Globe and Mail , Aug. 6, 2006 [Online]. Available: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/comma-quirk-irks-rogers/article1101686/ ↵
  • “The £8.8m typo: How one mistake killed a family business,” (28 Jan. 2015). The Guardian [online]. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2015/jan/28/typo-how-one-mistake-killed-a-family-business-taylor-and-sons ↵
  • E. Tufte, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint , 2001 [Online]. Available: https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/pi/2016_2017/phil/tufte-powerpoint.pdf ↵
  • C. McFadden, "Understanding the tragic Hyatt Regency walkway collapse," Interesting Engineering , July 4, 2017 [Online]: https://interestingengineering.com/understanding-hyatt-regency-walkway-collapse ↵
  • T.M. Goerges (1996), Analytical Writing for Science and Technology [Online], Available: https://www.scribd.com/document/96822930/Analytical-Writing ↵
  • C. Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, New York, NY: Random House, 1995. ↵

Technical Writing Essentials by Suzan Last is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Internal Communications

5 Internal Communication Case Studies and Best Practices To Follow

By Alex Cleary

Updated: Dec 26, 2023

From employee engagement to workplace culture to change management, businesses often face similar challenges to each other even if those businesses are radically different. While the specifics of these challenges may differ, how other businesses solve these challenges can give you new insights into addressing your own.

We’re always interested in how our customers use ContactMonkey to solve their internal communications challenges, which is why we publish customer case studies. Learn how other businesses solve their communication challenges and get inspiration on ways you can improve your business by using an internal communications tool .

Improve your internal communications today.

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What is an Internal Communication Case Study?

An internal communication case study examines how a company addressed a specific problem facing their organization, or achieved a specific goal. Communication is crucial for every business, and communication challenges can manifest in all kinds of situations.

An effective internal communication case study will clearly outline the problem, solution, and result of the business’ efforts to reach their goal. An internal communication case study should also outline best practices that were developed in this process, and how those best practices serve the business going forward.

Why are internal communication case studies important?

A good internal communication case study should not only explain the circumstances around a specific business’ problems and solution. It should also help others develop new ways to approach their own internal communication challenges , and shed light on common communication pitfalls that face a majority of businesses.

Whenever you’re facing a particular communication problem at your workplace, we recommend searching out a relevant internal communication case study about businesses facing similar issues. Even though the particulars may be different, it’s always important to see how internal communications problems are solved .

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5 Best Internal Communications Case Studies

We put together this list of our favourite ContactMonkey case studies that best demonstrate the many problems our internal communications software can be used to solve. If you want to learn more about any of these customers and see other case studies, check out our Customers page .

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1. Mettler Toledo Saves Days on their Internal Communications with ContactMonkey

When Kate Kraley began as Mettler Toledo’s Marketing Communications Specialist, she wanted to use internal communications to increase engagement and improve communication with employees.

But Mettler Toledo —a global manufacturer of precision instruments for various industries—had a confusing and ineffective array of internal communications channels . Here’s how Kate took charge of internal communications at Mettler Toledo with ContactMonkey.

Kate came to an internal communications department tasked with reaching employees through a number of channels. Email was the main focus of their approach, but this encompassed many forms of communication based on email like employee newsletters, eNews, and quarterly email updates.

Kate wanted to improve the quality of their internal communications. She used a variety of tools to create their newsletters, including using Mailchimp and online HTML template builder. But because Mailchimp is not for internal communications , Kate and her team found themselves spending over 8 hours a week building their internal communications:

“We faced challenges with Mailchimp. Since we had to leave Outlook to use Mailchimp, we found it was double the work to maintain distribution lists in both Outlook and Mailchimp. The HTML builder in Mailchimp was also difficult to use as it didn’t work well with older versions of Outlook, compromising the layout.”

Kate also needed a way to determine whether Mettler Toledo employees were actually reading her internal communications. She used Mailchimp to track open rate, but wanted more in-depth measures of engagement. That’s when she switched to ContactMonkey.

Kate found ContactMonkey via the IABC Hub in 2018, and began testing it out. ContactMonkey’s all-in-one internal communications software removed the need to switch from tool to tool. Using our email template builder , Kate now builds visually stunning email newsletters and templates without having to navigate away from Outlook:

Email template for employees - innovative internal communication ideas

She also now has access to her own analytics dashboard . Kate analyzes numerous email metrics like open rate, click-through rate, read time, opens by device and location, and more to see which communications are driving the most engagement. With this new centralized approach, Kate knew she had found the right solution:

“Once I started using ContactMonkey, I realized I was able to save 4 hours of work a week, which translated to 25 days saved per year! ContactMonkey has helped us understand what employees are interested in!”

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2. BASF Manages Their Remote Workforce with ContactMonkey

Mark Kaplan is the Global Communications Manager at BASF’s Agricultural Group —a department of the German chemical company BASF SE. Because BASF has offices and production sites around the world, Mark coordinates with other internal communicators across the company to drive employee engagement.

With the success of any business comes new challenges, and BASF isn’t any different. While Mark knew he had to keep others informed of the latest news from the BASF Agricultural Group, he was aware employees would be receiving news from other parts of the company as well.

With many different departments sending their own internal communications, Mark faced a difficult task: keeping employees engaged while being careful not to overwhelm them with countless emails and updates.

“We try to be very strategic with what we’re sending out because people are already getting a lot.”

Not only did Mark have to find a solution that made his email communications more engaging, but he also had to prove the value of whatever solution he chose to management. How could Mark show that he was increasing employee engagement while avoiding tuning out from oversaturation?

Mark began using ContactMonkey to create better internal communications for BASF employees. Using our drag-and-drop email template builder, he designs emails that maximized communication and minimized distractions, keeping information to just what his recipients needed to know.

Mark uses ContactMonkey’s email template library to save time on his email design process. He also uses the easy drag-and-drop format of the email template builder to add multimedia into his email communications to save space and increase their effectiveness:

case study of communication

Mark uses the email analytics provided by ContactMonkey to determine the best times to send internal emails . Not only does email analytics help Mark increase engagement on his employee emails, but he now has hard data he can show management to prove the value of his internal communications.

“ContactMonkey has been great in that I can download a report, attach it to an email, and send it to our top leadership and say, ‘Oh, wow. 88% of the organization opened this in the last 24 hours, I think we should do more of this.’ It’s that little extra credibility.”

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3. Alnylam Drives Remote Employee Engagement Using ContactMonkey

Employee engagement is crucial for ongoing productivity and growth, and Alnylam’s Brendon Pires wanted to leverage their internal communications to increase engagement.

Brendon is an internal communications specialist at Alnylam —the world’s leading RNAi therapeutics company—and is tasked with keeping their 2000+ employees engaged and informed. But Brendon’s existing internal communications process was leading to issues all over the place.

Like many companies, Alnylam shifted to remote work when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. Brendon knew that employees would be relying on his emails to stay up-to-date on the latest company news and announcements, but their existing internal communications tool wasn’t up to the task:

  • Scheduled emails were prevented from being sent out.
  • Email design was a chore with a difficult-to-use email builder.
  • Intranet traffic was down and Brendon’s emails weren’t driving traffic to it.
  • Email tracking was limited as many internal emails were being flagged by their tracking software’s firewall.

“We were having consistent issues and it had been going on for like a couple of months. It was one issue after the other, between emails not sending because they were getting caught in our firewall, and then tracking not being consistent. So at the end of the day it was kind of like that’s really important, you know? Obviously if I can’t send that email that’s a problem. So that’s what really drove us to look at other solutions like ContactMonkey”

Brendon and Alnylam use Outlook for their employee emails, so he began looking for alternatives to his current software. That’s when Brendon found ContactMonkey.

Right away Brendon had a much easier time creating internal emails using our email template builder. He can create stellar internal emails and email templates that drive more engagement.

Brendon also uses ContactMonkey’s embedded star ratings to let Alnylam employees rate the emails they’re receiving. This helps Brendon and his team zero-in on their most engaging email content. He also uses our email analytics to measure engagement via open rate and click-through rate. He maximizes his results on these metrics by using ContactMonkey’s scheduled email sending:

case study of communication

Using ContactMonkey, Brendon was able to increase email engagement and drive traffic to Alnylam’s internal intranet . He now sends emails without worry of encountering sending errors that can hinder engagement—like Outlook not rendering HTML emails .

“ContactMonkey is really easy to use and allows me to create really nice content. There’s enough customization so we can do what we really want and have some creative freedom.”

4. Travel Counsellors Ltd. Stays Connected with Remote Employees Using ContactMonkey

In an economy deeply impacted by COVID-19, countless companies had to adapt to new challenges. As Community Manager at Travel Counsellors , Dave Purcell experienced firsthand the effects on morale and engagement his over 1,900 partners experienced as result of the quarantine and resulting societal changes.

Dave wanted to regularly check-in on Travel Counsellors franchisees’ wellbeing, and measure their engagement over time. But Dave’s current method of checking-in on an audience of over 1,900 was not up to the task.

Using their existing email software, Dave encountered all sorts of problems when trying to gauge wellness and drive email engagement. He and his team were unable to create personalized internal communications , as they were told it just wasn’t possible with their existing “solution”. They also experienced numerous tracking issues, as they were receiving tracking numbers that didn’t make any sense.

“The stats we had previously were unusable and that’s the easiest way I can put it. I was getting 200% open rates, which was just impossible.”

Realizing that email tracking and personalization were must-have features for him and his team, Dave sought a new email software that could deliver what he was looking for.

With the aim of sending personalized emails and tracking wellness in his organization, Dave was immediately impressed by ContactMonkey. “I stumbled across ContactMonkey, and everything just screamed: ‘This is the right platform for us’. It’s pretty fantastic.”

Dave uses ContactMonkey’s merge tags to create personalized subject lines and body copy based on the recipient:

Adding merge tags to a subject line for an email being sent in Gmail using ContactMonkey.

He also began using emoji reactions on his weekly employee newsletters , using them as a pulse check survey for his audience.

“Mindset and wellbeing have always been a big part of what we do. It’s even more so now. Our franchisees craved that personal interaction. ‘Welcome to a Brand New Week’ checks in with them on a Monday, sees how they’re feeling with emoji reactions. And we do the same on a Friday.”

In addition to customization and surveys, Dave uses our email template builder’s custom employer branding options to save time on creating his email newsletters. All of this is driven by email analytics that help Dave and his team determine which content is generating the greatest engagement.

“Our commercial team is looking at what people are engaging with in terms of link clicks and what they’re not engaging with and changing our tactic depending on that. We also send an update from our CEO and we can now track this more accurately. We’re getting a 90% open rate within two days.”

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5. Exemplis Boosts Internal Communications Engagement with ContactMonkey

When Corey Kachigan arrived at Exemplis as Engagement and Communications Lead, she knew she had her work cut out for her. Exemplis—the largest volume manufacturer of office seating in North America—was experiencing rapid growth but did not have any sort of internal communications strategy . Corey knew if she wanted to properly manage Exemplis’ ongoing growth, she’d need to make internal communications an indispensable part of the business.

Before Corey arrived, Exemplis’ existing internal communications consisted only of random announcements and update emails. They had no defined approach for sending internal communications, which lead to emails that can cause employees to tune out.

“Our receptionist would email: ‘Hey, whoever left their coffee mug in the sink, please clean it and take it back to your desk.’ And it’s like, okay, that just went to 200 people.”

Corey and her team knew they had to harness their email resources better, and wanted a way to measure what employees actually wanted to see.

“We need some metrics to gauge whether this is working or not. We’re rolling out all these things, but we can’t tell if employees are even clicking these emails. Our team is inundated with hundreds of emails a day. How do we know they are reading these and how do we know they find it valuable? We have no idea.”

They also wanted to use emails to align their ever-growing employee base with Exemplis’ core values and vision. Using Mailchimp—an external marketing email tool—resulted in more problems than solutions. Corey experienced issues with importing and tracking emails within Outlook. She realized that Mailchimp is not for internal communications , and set out to find a new solution to power her employee emails.

So Corey began searching for a new email software for internal communications. Creating a definite approach to internal communications was just one priority of hers; she also wanted to prove the value of internal communications to management using hard data.

What first stood out to Corey about ContactMonkey was the crisp layout and that it worked with Exemplis’ existing Outlook system. ContactMonkey uses your company’s existing email services, and this meant Corey would no longer encounter internal email problems caused by an external tool like Mailchimp.

Corey now uses email metrics and employee feedback to inform her internal communications approach. She features pulse surveys on her internal emails, and uses the results in combination with email metrics to pinpoint what Exemplis employees want to see.

ContactMonkey eNPS survey

With ContactMonkey’s email analytics, Corey can point to real engagement data to back up her internal communications objectives.

“The thing I love about ContactMonkey is that it allows us to communicate more consistently with our team, but also be able to have the data to back it up. When we used to send out newsletters, we didn’t really have a way to see who did or didn’t open it, who clicked what and they couldn’t interact with the communication besides reply to me, which was super cumbersome.”

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Achieve Your Internal Communications Goals with ContactMonkey

Although internal communications is a common aspect of all businesses, everyone approaches it differently. Finding out the best email practices that work for your employees is a crucial step in the quest for increased engagement.

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Case Studies in Organizational Communication

Case Studies in Organizational Communication Ethical Perspectives and Practices

  • Steve May - The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA
  • Description

See what’s new to this edition by selecting the Features tab on this page. Should you need additional information or have questions regarding the HEOA information provided for this title, including what is new to this edition, please email [email protected] . Please include your name, contact information, and the name of the title for which you would like more information. For information on the HEOA, please go to http://ed.gov/policy/highered/leg/hea08/index.html .

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The course including ethical decision-making has to be reshuffled for now, but in the future I will definitely use the book as a source for supporting material.

Excellent supplement to text I'm using. Offers in depth case studies and addresses evaluation using critical thinking.

Is there any instructor material available?

This book provides an effective way to engage students into theory. The cases presented can also be further analysed using a plethora of approaches, which makes it a useful teaching tool.

This book will be particularly helpful for students who have an interest in communication. I will also use it to supplement my lectures with examples in class. The book is very well laid out, engaging in its detail with signposting to further material for those students who wish to read more.

Matched with course design- practical and applied pedagogy for studying ethical issues and communication in everyday life.

NEW TO THIS EDITION

  • The Second Edition includes expanded coverage of the recent economic meltdown, globalization, new technologies, and corporate social responsibility.
  • Eighteen new case studies on current workplace issues include companies such as BP, Google, Toyota, Gap, Wyeth, and Enron.

KEY FEATURES

  • Emerging issues in the workplace, explored in several case studies, include work/family balance, sexual harassment, outsourcing, personal privacy, bribery, new technologies, social networking, corporate social responsibility, and other issues.
  • International case studies examine the ethical behavior of non-American organizations, providing a more thorough understanding of ethics in a global business environment.
  • The consistent case study structure allows instructors and students greater opportunity to compare and contrast cases on comparable terms.

Sample Materials & Chapters

Case Study 1

Case Study 3

For instructors

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Engaging Organizational Communication Theory and Research

This title is also available on SAGE Knowledge , the ultimate social sciences online library. If your library doesn’t have access, ask your librarian to start a trial .

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case study of communication

Case Studies in Organizational Communication: Ethical Perspectives and Practices

  • Edited by: Steve May
  • Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc.
  • Publication year: 2013
  • Online pub date: June 19, 2012
  • Discipline: Media, Communication & Cultural Studies
  • Subject: Management Communication , Organizational Communication , Organizational Communication
  • DOI: https:// doi. org/10.4135/9781452240572
  • Keywords: Arthur Andersen , border patrol , Enron , factory farming , Google , staff , WalMart Show all Show less
  • Print ISBN: 9781412983099
  • Online ISBN: 9781452240572
  • Buy the book icon link

Subject index

The Second Edition of Case Studies in Organizational Communication: Ethical Perspectives and Practices, by Dr. Steve May, integrates ethical theory and practice to help strengthen readers’ awareness, judgment, and action in organizations by exploring ethical dilemmas in a diverse range of well-known business cases.

Front Matter

  • List of Figures and Tables
  • Acknowledgments
  • Introduction: Ethical Perspectives and Practices

Part I: Alignment

  • Chapter 1: Ethical Dilemmas in the Financial Industry
  • Chapter 2: The Ethics of the “Family Friendly” Organization: The Challenge of Policy Inclusiveness
  • Chapter 3: Managing the Ethical Implications of the Big Box: The Walmart Effect
  • Chapter 4: Just Window Dressing? The Gap (RED) Campaign

Part II: Dialogic Communication

  • Chapter 5: Ethical Contradictions and E-Mail Communication at Enron Corporation
  • Chapter 6: Toyota—Oh, What a Feeling, or Oh, What a Mess? Ethics at the Intersection of Industry, Government, and Publics
  • Chapter 7: Sanlu's Milk Contamination Crisis: Organizational Communication in Conflicting Cultural, Economic, and Ethical Context
  • Chapter 8: What About the People in the “People's Car”? Tata Motors Limited and the Nano Controversy

Part III: Participation

  • Chapter 9: Resistance and Belonging: The Chicago Blackhawks and the 2010 Chicago Annual Pride Parade
  • Chapter 10: Is Agriculture Spinning Out of Control? A Case Study of Factory Farms in Ohio: Environmental Communication, News Frames, and Social Justice
  • Chapter 11: Ethical Storm or Model Workplace?
  • Chapter 12: Gaming the System: Ethical Challenges in Innovative Organizations

Part IV: Transparency

  • Chapter 13: Reward, Identity, and Autonomy: Ethical Issues in College Athletics
  • Chapter 14: The Case of Wyeth, DesignWrite, and Premarin: The Ethics of Ghostwriting Medical Journal Articles
  • Chapter 15: Fired Over Facebook: Issues of Employee Monitoring and Personal Privacy on Social Media Websites
  • Chapter 16: Daimler's Bribery Case

Part V: Accountability

  • Chapter 17: The Deepwater Horizon Disaster: Challenges in Ethical Decision Making
  • Chapter 18: Outsourcing U.S. Intelligence
  • Chapter 19: Silence in the Turmoil of Crisis: Peanut Corporation of America's Response to Its Sweeping Salmonella Outbreak
  • Chapter 20: Patrolling the Ethical Borders of Compassion and Enforcement

Part VI: Courage

  • Chapter 21: Google's Dilemma in China
  • Chapter 22: Speaking Up Is Not an Easy Choice: Boat Rocking as Ethical Dilemma
  • Chapter 23: The Aftermath of Scandal: Picking Up the Pieces of a Shattered Identity

Back Matter

  • Afterword: Casework and Communication About Ethics: Toward a Broader Perspective on Our Lives, Our Careers, Our Happiness, and Our Common Future
  • Author Index
  • About the Editor
  • About the Contributors

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Present or publish your research or creative activity, effective communication: case study, three types of communication.

Communicating with your audience is more than giving a handful of information, it is the use of clear language that is factual and logical to depict to the audience that the message is essential to their lives and their future.

The biggest communication problem is we do not listen to understand. We listen to reply.

Here is a video depicting why it is important to tailor to your audience's needs

Communicating to a Diverse Demographic Audience

This video depicts the importance of communication to different demographic audience members. Making sure that your presentation is understood by all individuals is a valuable communication tool

Remember that no matter the audience, everyone should understand and enjoy the information you are presenting.

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Internal Communication Case Studies: The Terrible & The Terrific

It’s a question that often comes up: ‘How do other businesses do this?’. Whether you’re implementing a new sales structure or updating your software systems, it’s always helpful to consider how similar companies approached the issue. This is particularly relevant for internal communications , where there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Each organisation has its own unique set of challenges and needs to tailor its internal communication strategy accordingly. Internal communication case studies can help you evaluate your approach, by exploring comparable situations and their outcomes.

In this blog, we’ve selected some of the best internal communication examples from the world of business. Not all were successful. In fact, some were complete disasters. But these failures, along with the success stories, are great examples of internal communication in action. When you’re looking for the answers to effective internal communication , nothing speaks more clearly than real-life examples.

We have grouped the following internal communication case study examples under the ‘seven golden rules’. These rules were proposed by Fitzpatrick in his ground-breaking  publication  Internal Communications: A Manual for Practitioners. These fundamental rules of internal communication best practices help us to categorise the relative successes and failures of these examples.

Develop a robust internal comms strategy using our canvas

Rule 1: Activity means nothing without results

The starting point for every IC has to be: “What do we want people to do?” Being busy and generating a constant stream of campaigns, videos and newsletters is a waste of time if nothing changes as a result. When you’re looking at improving internal communications , always keep track of the outcome as well as the action. This is where the true significance lies.

Case Study 1 - Nationwide Building Society

Background: Nationwide Building Society ran an award-winning five-week BIG Conversation, gathering ideas from all its 18,000 employees in a company-wide collaboration. The aim was directed to reinvigorating Nationwide’s sense of purpose.

Approach: The activity included TalkBack events, online surveys and a huge listening exercise to give staff and members the chance to contribute to its future. By implementing a company-wide internal communications survey , Nationwide opened up a free-flowing conversation with its workforce.

Outcome: The result has been a refreshed strategy and a marketing campaign based on the new concept of ‘building society, nationwide’ – helping people improve the quality of their lives. This business communication case study demonstrates the power of actively listening and acting on employee’s suggestions. 

Verdict: Success

Rule 2: Value benefits the business

You will only be adding real value if your employee communication links directly to the business needs of your organisation and helps to achieve a defined strategy or a specific project. The benefits of good internal communication only become apparent when you define your desired outcomes and set actual targets.

Case Study 2 – XPO Transport and Logistics

Background: XPO wanted to leverage great ideas from its colleagues across its 104 UK sites to help its customers improve productivity and reduce costs. Its large, flexible and hard-to-reach workforce (from drivers for Asda to B&Q warehouse contractors) don’t usually have a company phone or laptop. Of all the case studies on communication in the workplace, this large-scale exercise is remarkable in its scope.

Approach: To spark engagement, Talkfreely developed the Ideas Matter App, which every employee was able to download to their personal phone. An internal communications app is the ideal way to connect with remote workers and hard-to-reach employees.

Outcome: Linked directly to business needs, the internal communications platform proved to be exceptional value. The generation of ideas has been significant; 1 in 4 of all ideas submitted are being put into practice. In addition, it showed a remarkable return on investment of 6.5:1 with £156,000 of savings in the first year alone.

Rule 3: In the thick of it

When you’re looking for new ideas, trying to work out what your employees are really thinking or wondering why a previous internal communications plan went wrong, don't sit pondering at your desk or researching online. Leave your office and start talking. Once you talk and listen to your employees, you will begin to understand what motivates them, what concerns them and how they feel about the company. Of all the internal communication ideas , this one is key if you want to keep track of engagement levels.

Case Study 3 – AOL

Background: AOL announced it was slashing its Patch local news network by a third. This was a large-scale change affecting many employees across the company and required careful handling in its communication.

Approach: CEO Tim Armstrong set up a conference call with 1,000 employees with the aim of boosting morale across the workforce. As Armstrong talked, Patch Creative Director Abel Lenz began taking pictures of him. He was immediately sacked, in front of the 1,000 staff on the conference call.

Outcome: Perhaps Armstrong did not know that Lenz’s job included photographing meetings with key leaders for the Patch intranet, for the benefit of remote workers. But he should have. If he had been in touch with his workforce, he would have been fully aware of the roles of individual employees. This employee communication case study gives a clear indication of the importance of understanding your employee’s job roles.

Verdict: Failure

Rule 4: Shut up and listen

Communicating with employees should be a two-way street. The megaphone approach is never going to work best because people only feel connected and motivated if they are part of a conversation. It’s vital to put internal communication channels in place that allow employees to comment on the messages coming down from the top. Listen to what they have to say … and learn.

Case Study 4 – PayPal

Background: The digital payment company needed to address an internal report that revealed not all their employees were not using the PayPal app. The President, David Marcus, wrote a company-wide memo to all staff regarding the problem.

Approach: David Marcus took a heavy-handed approach to the matter. He told his staff to use the product or quit: “If you are one of the folks who refused to install the PayPal app or if you can’t remember your PayPal password, do yourself a favor, go find something that will connect with your heart and mind elsewhere”.

A better policy would have been to find out why his employees weren’t using the payment app, whether they felt competitor products had better features and ask for their suggestions.

Outcome: The memo was leaked to the press. It generated widespread coverage across the media and left customers wondering what was wrong with an app that PayPal’s own staff wouldn't use. Internal communications best practice case studies demonstrate that opening a two-way channel for feedback will improve both internal and external communication .

Find out how an employee engagement app can play a pivotal role in delivering an employee engagement strategy

Rule 5 – I did it their way

Understand the working methods of those you need to convince. If leaders seem bound up in stats and spreadsheets, give them what they want. Gather data to prove your ideas work, show them a process, outline a clear outcome and they’ll soon be on your side. Measuring internal communications will help to provide the rationale behind your ideas. Equally, if the types of internal communication you are using don’t seem to be connecting with your employees, don’t be afraid to try a different approach.

Case Study 5 – Seymour House

Background: Seymour House runs ten outstanding childcare nurseries and wanted to get staff across the group engaging better with each other to share great practice. They needed to identify the best methods of internal communication that would resonate with their unique team-based workforce.

Approach: Talkfreely innovated with an internal communications app called Community. Community replaces static web pages and posts with highly personalised, bite-sized chunks of information presented on boards displaying relevant cards. These communicate quick stories and are far better at connecting people across teams. 

Outcome: The Seymour House teams instantly connected with the Community app. Engagement levels took an immediate uplift as the communication and understanding between teams and individuals improved. This internal communications case study shows how crucial it is to connect with employees in a way that suits their style of interaction.

Rule 6: Make the most of managers

Your leadership team are crucial to the success of your strategy. However big or small your organisation, line managers and local leaders are your allies. They are essential to motivating employees and getting them on board: through discussion, allaying fears and leading by example. When you’re pulling together your internal communication definition , make sure leadership is one of the key points.

Case Study 6 – Yahoo

Background: The tech pioneer defined a need for remote workers return to the office environment. There was no longer a role for staff working from home and all employees needed to be office-based moving forward. The job of communicating this message was handed to the HR department.

Approach: Yahoo’s Head of HR sent out a motivational memo full of praise for the company’s “positive momentum”, “the buzz and energy in our offices”, “remarkable progress” and promising “the best is yet to come”. At the end of this message was the directive that all staff working from home must move back into the office or quit.

Outcome: A communication of this importance should have come from the head of the business. By trying to hide the order as a motivational HR message, it failed to provide a strategic business rationale. This is where the CEO needed to be a visible presence, sharing the reasoning behind this unpopular decision. Internal communication case study examples show time after time that leadership visibility is an essential element, especially when communicating change .

Rule 7: There is no silver bullet

We’d love to be able to reveal the secret to implementing that perfect internal communication strategy. Social media, the employee intranet , digital screens, email – they have all at some stage promised to revolutionise internal communications and make everything else redundant. But it hasn’t happened, which means the role of the internal communicator remains absolutely pivotal. Cut yourself slack in how you judge success, because every organisation has a different set of challenges and issues to overcome.

Case Study 7 – West Sussex County Council

Background: West Sussex Country Council has a workforce of over 6,000 staff spread across a wide geographic area in a variety of locations. In addition, around 25% of staff members have limited access to IT equipment and/or limited IT knowledge. The channels of internal communication in operation were outmoded and ineffective, leading to misinterpretation and inconsistencies.

Approach: Talkfreely developed a bespoke internal communications app designed to connect the disparate council workforce. Called ‘The Big Exchange’, the app allowed for real-time communication over a variety of digital platforms. Available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, it allowed for flexibility in work patterns, increasing its appeal for all employees.

Outcome: By the end of the first quarter, a third of the employee base were actively using the app. In some sectors, 33% would be a pretty modest engagement score. For West Sussex Country Council however, it has connected with those hard-to-reach employees for the very first time. In addition, it proved that there is a real council workforce appetite to get involved. For example - there were 25,200 page views in the first month which means on average, each active user visited over 25 pages of content per month. Read the full case study .

“The TalkFreely app has helped improve, beyond recognition, the way we communicate with our 6000 strong workforce, many of whom are hard to reach. This has become even more evident over the last few weeks in our local response to the coronavirus crisis, helping us to get critical, time-sensitive information out to staff quickly and easily wherever they are across the county.” William Hackett, Communications & Engagement Lead, West Sussex County Council

Final thoughts

It’s clear, when looking at this selection of communication case studies, that not every internal communication is destined for success. And, if handled incorrectly, a poorly targeted message can actually do more harm than good. Internal communication mistakes are very costly, to both morale and the bottom line. However, if you take the time to plan carefully, the positive impact of a good internal communication exchange can be considerable. When assessing internal communications case studies, it’s also vital to consider the arena in which the company is operating before judging the relative success of the campaign. Ultimately, every organisation will need to take a different approach, tailored to suit their unique set of circumstances.

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How Great Leaders Communicate

  • Carmine Gallo

case study of communication

Four strategies to motivate and inspire your team.

Transformational leaders are exceptional communicators. In this piece, the author outlines four communication strategies to help motivate and inspire your team: 1) Use short words to talk about hard things. 2) Choose sticky metaphors to reinforce key concepts. 3) Humanize data to create value. 4). Make mission your mantra to align teams.

In the age of knowledge, ideas are the foundation of success in almost every field. You can have the greatest idea in the world, but if you can’t persuade anyone else to follow your vision, your influence and impact will be greatly diminished. And that’s why communication is no longer considered a “soft skill” among the world’s top business leaders. Leaders who reach the top do not simply pay lip service to the importance of effective communication. Instead, they study the art in all its forms — writing, speaking, presenting — and constantly strive to improve on those skills.

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  • Carmine Gallo is a Harvard University instructor, keynote speaker, and author of 10 books translated into 40 languages. Gallo is the author of The Bezos Blueprint: Communication Secrets of the World’s Greatest Salesman  (St. Martin’s Press).

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Master of Advanced Studies in INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION

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Case Studies in Intercultural Communication

Welcome to the MIC Case Studies page.

Case Studies Intercultural Communication

Here you will find more than fifty different case studies, developed by our former participants from the Master of Advanced Studies in Intercultural Communication. The richness of this material is that it contains real-life experiences in intercultural communication problems in various settings, such as war, family, negotiations, inter-religious conflicts, business, workplace, and others. 

Cases also include renowned organizations and global institutions, such as the United Nations, Multinationals companies, Non-Governmental Organisations, Worldwide Events, European, African, Asian and North and South America Governments and others.

Intercultural situations are characterized by encounters, mutual respect and the valorization of diversity by individuals or groups of individuals identifying with different cultures. By making the most of the cultural differences, we can improve intercultural communication in civil society, in public institutions and the business world.

How can these Case Studies help you?

These case studies were made during the classes at the Master of Advanced Studies in Intercultural Communication. Therefore, they used the most updated skills, tools, theories and best practices available.   They were created by participants working in the field of public administration; international organizations; non-governmental organizations; development and cooperation organizations; the business world (production, trade, tourism, etc.); the media; educational institutions; and religious institutions. Through these case studies, you will be able to learn through real-life stories, how practitioners apply intercultural communication skills in multicultural situations.

Why are we opening our "Treasure Chest" for you?

We believe that Intercultural Communication has a growing role in the lives of organizations, companies and governments relationship with the public, between and within organizations. There are many advanced tools available to access, analyze and practice intercultural communication at a professional level.  Moreover, professionals are demanded to have an advanced cross-cultural background or experience to deal efficiently with their environment. International organizations are requiring workers who are competent, flexible, and able to adjust and apply their skills with the tact and sensitivity that will enhance business success internationally. Intercultural communication means the sharing of information across diverse cultures and social groups, comprising individuals with distinct religious, social, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. It attempts to understand the differences in how people from a diversity of cultures act, communicate and perceive the world around them. For this reason, we are sharing our knowledge chest with you, to improve and enlarge intercultural communication practice, awareness, and education.

We promise you that our case studies, which are now also yours, will delight, entertain, teach, and amaze you. It will reinforce or change the way you see intercultural communication practice, and how it can be part of your life today. Take your time to read them; you don't need to read all at once, they are rather small and very easy to read. The cases will always be here waiting for you. Therefore, we wish you an insightful and pleasant reading.

These cases represent the raw material developed by the students as part of their certification project. MIC master students are coming from all over the world and often had to write the case in a non-native language. No material can be reproduced without permission. ©   Master of Advanced Studies in Intercultural Communication , Università della Svizzera italiana, Switzerland.

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If you want to receive our last updated case studies or news about the program, leave us your email, and you will know in first-hand about intercultural communication education and cutting-edge research in the intercultural field.

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1.10 Case Studies: The Cost of Poor Communication

This chapter is adapted from Technical Writing Essentials – H5P Edition by Suzan Last licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Learning Objectives

  • Apply your understanding of context, purpose, audience, and channel in case studies.

No one knows exactly how much poor communication costs business, industry and government each year, but estimates suggest billions.  In 2017, Josh Bernoff claimed that the cost of poor communication was nearly $4 billion per year: “American workers spend 22 percent of their work time reading; higher compensated workers read more… America is spending 6 percent of total wages on time wasted attempting to get meaning out of poorly written material. Every company, every manager, every professional pays this tax, which consumes $396 billion of our national income” (Meier, 2017).

Poorly-worded or inefficient emails, careless reading or listening to instructions, documents that go unread due to poor design, hastily presenting inaccurate information, sloppy proofreading — all of these examples result in inevitable costs. In one tragic case, a lack of communication between contractors and engineers resulted in a walkway collapse that killed 114 people at the Hyatt Regency .

The waste caused by imprecisely worded regulations or instructions, confusing emails, long-winded memos, ambiguously written contracts, and other examples of poor communication is not as easily identified as the losses caused by a bridge collapse. But the losses are just as real—in reduced productivity, inefficiency, and lost business. In more personal terms, the losses are measured in wasted time, work, money, and ultimately, professional recognition. In extreme cases, losses can be measured in property damage, injuries, and even deaths.

The following cases show how poor communications can have real world costs and consequences.

A .  Read “Case 1: The Unaccepted Current Regulator Proposal”. Then, answer the 5 questions in the quiz set.

CASE 1:  Acme Electric Company

The Acme Electric Company worked day and night to develop a new current regulator designed to cut the electric power consumption in aluminum plants by 35%. They knew that, although the competition was fierce, their regulator could be produced more cheaply, was more reliable, and worked more efficiently than the competitors’ products.

The owner, eager to capture the market, personally but somewhat hastily put together a 120-page proposal to the three major aluminum manufacturers, recommending that their regulators be installed at all company plants.

The first 87 pages of the proposal were devoted to the mathematical theory and engineering design behind the new regulator, and the next 32 pages to descriptions of a new assembly line to produce regulators quickly. Buried in an appendix were the test results that compared her regulator’s performance with present models and a poorly drawn graph showed how much the dollar savings would be.

Acme Electric didn’t get the contracts, despite having the best product. Six months later, the company filed for bankruptcy.

B .  In small groups, examine one of the following cases and complete the following :

  • Define the rhetorical situation : Who is communicating to whom about what, how, and why? What was the goal of the communication in each case?
  • Identify the communication error (poor task or audience analysis? Use of inappropriate language or style? Poor organization or formatting of information? Other?)
  • Explain what costs/losses were incurred by this problem.
  • Identify possible solution s or strategies that would have prevented the problem, and what benefits would be derived from implementing solutions or preventing the problem.

Present your findings in a brief, informal presentation to the class.

CASE 2: Petro-chemical company report

Cameron (he/him), a research chemist for a major petro-chemical company, wrote a dense report about some new compounds he had synthesized in the laboratory from oil-refining by-products. The bulk of the report consisted of tables listing their chemical and physical properties, diagrams of their molecular structure, chemical formulas and computer printouts of toxicity tests. Buried at the end of the report was a casual speculation that one of the compounds might be a particularly effective insecticide.

Seven years later, the same oil company launched a major research program to find more effective but environmentally safe insecticides. After six months of research, someone uncovered Cameron’s report and his toxicity tests. A few hours of further testing confirmed that one of Cameron’s compounds was the safe, economical insecticide they had been looking for.

Cameron had since left the company because he felt that the importance of his research was not being appreciated.

CASE 3: Novaware instruction manual

As one of the first to enter the field of office automation, Novaware, Inc. had built a reputation for designing high-quality and user-friendly database and accounting programs for business and industry. When they decided to enter the word-processing market, their engineers designed an effective, versatile, and powerful program that Novaware felt sure would outperform any competitor.

To be sure that their new word-processing program was accurately documented, Novaware asked the senior program designer to supervise writing the instruction manual. The result was a thorough, accurate and precise description of every detail of the program’s operation.

When Novaware began marketing its new word processor, cries for help flooded in from office workers who were so confused by the massive manual that they couldn’t even find out how to get started. Then several business journals reviewed the program and judged it “too complicated” and “difficult to learn.” After an impressive start, sales of the new word processing program plummeted.

Novaware eventually put out a new, clearly written training guide that led new users step by step through introductory exercises and told them how to find commands quickly. But the rewrite cost Novaware $350,000, a year’s lead in the market, and its reputation for producing easy-to-use business software.

CASE 4: Policy memo

Nhi (they/them) supervised 36 professionals in 6 city libraries. To cut the costs of unnecessary overtime, they issued this one-sentence memo to their staff:

After the 36 copies were sent out, Nhi’s office received 26 phone calls asking what the memo meant. What the 10 people who didn’t call about the memo thought is uncertain. It took a week to clarify the new policy.

CASE 5: “Nerds gone wild”

The following excerpt is from Carl Sagan’s book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, itself both a plea for and an excellent example of clear scientific communication:

The Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) would have been the preeminent instrument on the planet for probing the fine structure of matter and the nature of the early Universe. Its price tag was $10 to $15 billion. It was cancelled by Congress in 1993 after about $2 billion had been spent — a worst of both worlds outcome. But this debate was not, I think, mainly about declining interest in the support of science. Few in Congress understood what modern high-energy accelerators are for. They are not for weapons. They have no practical applications. They are for something that is, worrisomely from the point of view of many, called “the theory of everything.” Explanations that involve entities called quarks, charm, flavor, color, etc., sound as if physicists are being cute. The whole thing has an aura, in the view of at least some Congresspeople I’ve talked to, of “nerds gone wild” — which I suppose is an uncharitable way of describing curiosity-based science. No one asked to pay for this had the foggiest idea of what a Higgs boson is. I’ve read some of the material intended to justify the SSC. At the very end, some of it wasn’t too bad, but there was nothing that really addressed what the project was about on a level accessible to bright but skeptical non-physicists. If physicists are asking for 10 or 15 billion dollars to build a machine that has no practical value, at the very least they should make an extremely serious effort, with dazzling graphics, metaphors, and capable use of the English language, to justify their proposal. More than financial mismanagement, budgetary constraints, and political incompetence, I think this is the key to the failure of the SSC.

CASE 6: Same topic, different genres

Rowan (she/her) was simultaneously enrolled in a university writing course and working as a co-op student at the New Minas Boat Manufacturing plant. As part of her co-op work experience, Rowan shadowed her supervisor/mentor on a safety inspection of the plant, and was asked to write up the results of the inspection in a compliance memo . In the same week, Rowan’s writing instructor assigned the class to write a narrative essay based on some personal experience. Rowan, trying to be efficient, thought that the plant visit experience could provide the basis for her essay assignment as well.

She wrote the essay first because she was used to writing essays and was pretty good at it. She had never even seen a compliance memo, much less written one, so was not as confident about that task. She began the essay like this:

On June 1, 2018, I conducted a safety audit of the New Minas Boat Manufacturing plant. The purpose of the audit was to ensure that all processes and activities in the plant adhere to safety and handling rules and policies outlined in the Workplace Safety Handbook and relevant government regulations. I was escorted on a 3-hour tour of the facility by…

Rowan finished the essay and submitted it to her writing instructor. She then revised the essay slightly, keeping the introduction the same, and submitted it to her co-op supervisor. She “aced” the essay, getting an A grade, but her co-op supervisor told her that the report was unacceptable and would have to be rewritten – especially the beginning, which should have clearly indicated whether or not the plant was in compliance with safety regulations. Rowan was aghast! She had never heard of putting the “conclusion” at the beginning . She missed the company softball game that Saturday so she could rewrite the report to the satisfaction of her supervisor.

Meier, C. (2017, January 14). The Exorbitant Cost of Poor Writing (About $400 Billion). Medium . https://medium.com/@MeierMarketing/the-exorbitant-cost-of-poor-writing-about-400-billion-973b5a4f0096

Sagan, C. (1995). The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. Random House.

Exercises adapted from T.M Georges’ Analytical Writing for Science and Technology. T.M. Goerges (1996), Analytical Writing for Science and Technology [Online], Available: https://www.scribd.com/document/96822930/Analytical-Writing

1.10 Case Studies: The Cost of Poor Communication Copyright © 2021 by Suzan Last is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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1.4: Case Study- The Cost of Poor Communication

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No one knows exactly how much poor communication costs business, industry and government each year, but estimates suggest billions. In fact, a recent estimate claims that the cost in the U.S. alone are close to $4 billion annually! [1] Poorly-worded or inefficient emails, careless reading or listening to instructions, documents that go unread due to poor design, hastily presenting inaccurate information, sloppy proofreading — all of these examples result in inevitable costs. The problem is that these costs aren’t usually included on the corporate balance sheet at the end of each year, so often the problem remains unsolved.

You may have seen the Project Management Tree Cartoon before ( Figure 1.4.1 ); it has been used and adapted widely to illustrate the perils of poor communication during a project.

Different interpretations of how to design a tree swing by different members of a team and communication failures can lead to problems during the project.

The waste caused by imprecisely worded regulations or instructions, confusing emails, long-winded memos, ambiguously written contracts, and other examples of poor communication is not as easily identified as the losses caused by a bridge collapse or a flood. But the losses are just as real—in reduced productivity, inefficiency, and lost business. In more personal terms, the losses are measured in wasted time, work, money, and ultimately, professional recognition. In extreme cases, losses can be measured in property damage, injuries, and even deaths.

The following “case studies” show how poor communications can have real world costs and consequences. For example, consider the “ Comma Quirk ” in the Rogers Contract that cost $2 million. [3] A small error in spelling a company name cost £8.8 million. [4] Examine Edward Tufte’s discussion of of the failed PowerPoint presentation that attempted to prevent the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster. [5] The failure of project managers and engineers to communicate effectively resulted in the deadly Hyatt Regency walkway collapse. [6] The case studies below offer a few more examples that might be less extreme, but much more common.

In small groups, examine each “case” and determine the following:

  • Define the rhetorical situation : Who is communicating to whom about what, how, and why? What was the goal of the communication in each case?
  • Identify the communication error (poor task or audience analysis? Use of inappropriate language or style? Poor organization or formatting of information? Other?)
  • Explain what costs/losses were incurred by this problem.
  • Identify possible solution s or strategies that would have prevented the problem, and what benefits would be derived from implementing solutions or preventing the problem.

Present your findings in a brief, informal presentation to the class.

Exercises adapted from T.M Georges’ Analytical Writing for Science and Technology. [7]

CASE 1: The promising chemist who buried his results

Bruce, a research chemist for a major petro-chemical company, wrote a dense report about some new compounds he had synthesized in the laboratory from oil-refining by-products. The bulk of the report consisted of tables listing their chemical and physical properties, diagrams of their molecular structure, chemical formulas and computer printouts of toxicity tests. Buried at the end of the report was a casual speculation that one of the compounds might be a particularly effective insecticide.

Seven years later, the same oil company launched a major research program to find more effective but environmentally safe insecticides. After six months of research, someone uncovered Bruce’s report and his toxicity tests. A few hours of further testing confirmed that one of Bruce’s compounds was the safe, economical insecticide they had been looking for.

Bruce had since left the company, because he felt that the importance of his research was not being appreciated.

CASE 2: The rejected current regulator proposal

The Acme Electric Company worked day and night to develop a new current regulator designed to cut the electric power consumption in aluminum plants by 35%. They knew that, although the competition was fierce, their regulator could be produced more cheaply, was more reliable, and worked more efficiently than the competitors’ products.

The owner, eager to capture the market, personally but somewhat hastily put together a 120-page proposal to the three major aluminum manufacturers, recommending that their regulators be installed at all company plants.

She devoted the first 87 pages of the proposal to the mathematical theory and engineering design behind his new regulator, and the next 32 to descriptions of the new assembly line she planned to set up to produce regulators quickly. Buried in an appendix were the test results that compared her regulator’s performance with present models, and a poorly drawn graph showed how much the dollar savings would be.

Acme Electric didn’t get the contracts, despite having the best product. Six months later, the company filed for bankruptcy.

CASE 3: The instruction manual the scared customers away

As one of the first to enter the field of office automation, Sagatec Software, Inc. had built a reputation for designing high-quality and user-friendly database and accounting programs for business and industry. When they decided to enter the word-processing market, their engineers designed an effective, versatile, and powerful program that Sagatec felt sure would outperform any competitor.

To be sure that their new word-processing program was accurately documented, Sagatec asked the senior program designer to supervise writing the instruction manual. The result was a thorough, accurate and precise description of every detail of the program’s operation.

When Sagatec began marketing its new word processor, cries for help flooded in from office workers who were so confused by the massive manual that they couldn’t even find out how to get started. Then several business journals reviewed the program and judged it “too complicated” and “difficult to learn.” After an impressive start, sales of the new word processing program plummeted.

Sagatec eventually put out a new, clearly written training guide that led new users step by step through introductory exercises and told them how to find commands quickly. But the rewrite cost Sagatec $350,000, a year’s lead in the market, and its reputation for producing easy-to-use business software.

CASE 4: One garbled memo – 26 baffled phone calls

Joanne supervised 36 professionals in 6 city libraries. To cut the costs of unnecessary overtime, she issued this one-sentence memo to her staff:

After the 36 copies were sent out, Joanne’s office received 26 phone calls asking what the memo meant. What the 10 people who didn’t call about the memo thought is uncertain. It took a week to clarify the new policy.

CASE 5: Big science — Little rhetoric

The following excerpt is from Carl Sagan’s book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, [8] itself both a plea for and an excellent example of clear scientific communication:

The Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) would have been the preeminent instrument on the planet for probing the fine structure of matter and the nature of the early Universe. Its price tag was $10 to $15 billion. It was cancelled by Congress in 1993 after about $2 billion had been spent — a worst of both worlds outcome. But this debate was not, I think, mainly about declining interest in the support of science. Few in Congress understood what modern high-energy accelerators are for. They are not for weapons. They have no practical applications. They are for something that is, worrisomely from the point of view of many, called “the theory of everything.” Explanations that involve entities called quarks, charm, flavor, color, etc., sound as if physicists are being cute. The whole thing has an aura, in the view of at least some Congresspeople I’ve talked to, of “nerds gone wild” — which I suppose is an uncharitable way of describing curiosity-based science. No one asked to pay for this had the foggiest idea of what a Higgs boson is. I’ve read some of the material intended to justify the SSC. At the very end, some of it wasn’t too bad, but there was nothing that really addressed what the project was about on a level accessible to bright but skeptical non-physicists. If physicists are asking for 10 or 15 billion dollars to build a machine that has no practical value, at the very least they should make an extremely serious effort, with dazzling graphics, metaphors, and capable use of the English language, to justify their proposal. More than financial mismanagement, budgetary constraints, and political incompetence, I think this is the key to the failure of the SSC.

CASE 6: The co-op student who mixed up genres

Chris was simultaneously enrolled in a university writing course and working as a co-op student at the Widget Manufacturing plant. As part of his co-op work experience, Chris shadowed his supervisor/mentor on a safety inspection of the plant, and was asked to write up the results of the inspection in a compliance memo . In the same week, Chris’s writing instructor assigned the class to write a narrative essay based on some personal experience. Chris, trying to be efficient, thought that the plant visit experience could provide the basis for his essay assignment as well.

He wrote the essay first, because he was used to writing essays and was pretty good at it. He had never even seen a compliance memo, much less written one, so was not as confident about that task. He began the essay like this:

On June 1, 2018, I conducted a safety audit of the Widget Manufacturing plant in New City. The purpose of the audit was to ensure that all processes and activities in the plant adhere to safety and handling rules and policies outlined in the Workplace Safety Handbook and relevant government regulations. I was escorted on a 3-hour tour of the facility by…

Chris finished the essay and submitted it to his writing instructor. He then revised the essay slightly, keeping the introduction the same, and submitted it to his co-op supervisor. He “aced” the essay, getting an A grade, but his supervisor told him that the report was unacceptable and would have to be rewritten – especially the beginning, which should have clearly indicated whether or not the plant was in compliance with safety regulations. Chris was aghast! He had never heard of putting the “conclusion” at the beginning . He missed the company softball game that Saturday so he could rewrite the report to the satisfaction of his supervisor.

  • J. Bernoff, "Bad writing costs business billions," Daily Beast , Oct. 16, 2016 [Online]. Available: https://www.thedailybeast.com/bad-writing-costs-businesses-billions?ref=scroll ↵
  • J. Ward, "The project management tree swing cartoon, past and present," TamingData, July 8, 2019 [Online] Available: https://www.tamingdata.com/2010/07/08/the-project-management-tree-swing-cartoon-past-and-present/ . CC-BY-ND 4.0 . ↵
  • G. Robertson, “Comma quirk irks Rogers,” Globe and Mail , Aug. 6, 2006 [Online]. Available: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/comma-quirk-irks-rogers/article1101686/ ↵
  • “The £8.8m typo: How one mistake killed a family business,” (28 Jan. 2015). The Guardian [online]. Available: https://www.theguardian.com/law/shortcuts/2015/jan/28/typo-how-one-mistake-killed-a-family-business-taylor-and-sons ↵
  • E. Tufte, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint , 2001 [Online]. Available: https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/pi/2016_2017/phil/tufte-powerpoint.pdf ↵
  • C. McFadden, "Understanding the tragic Hyatt Regency walkway collapse," Interesting Engineering , July 4, 2017 [Online]: https://interestingengineering.com/understanding-hyatt-regency-walkway-collapse ↵
  • T.M. Goerges (1996), Analytical Writing for Science and Technology [Online], Available: https://www.scribd.com/document/96822930/Analytical-Writing ↵
  • C. Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, New York, NY: Random House, 1995. ↵

Study case, Not a laughing matter

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case study of communication

Visual communication skills for students.

The California State University gets students ready for the workforce with Adobe Express.

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Placement rate for graduates experienced with creative tools

Adobe Creative Cloud Pro Edition

Adobe Express

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Enable students to compete for jobs by teaching in-demand workplace skills

Close the digital divide by providing equal access to creative learning

Increase student engagement with creative assignments that excite them

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Drives 100% placement rate for journalism students who learn creative apps

Builds creative and digital skills with technology embedded into 45% of curriculum

Fosters student innovation with easy-to-use, online creative tools

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Shaping California’s future

The California State University (CSU) system isn’t only the largest four-year public university system in the U.S., it’s also the most diverse. More than half of the students come from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds, and nearly one-third of undergraduates are the first in their families to attend college. The CSU schools are committed to delivering quality and equitable education for all. Today that includes closing the digital divide to give its 130,000 yearly graduates the technical and digital skills required to succeed in modern workplaces.

To achieve the CSU’s goals, several of its universities, including San José State University (SJSU), Fresno State , Cal State Fullerton , and San Diego State University have become Adobe Creative Campuses . As an Adobe Creative Campus, all students, faculty, and staff have access to Adobe Creative Cloud apps including Adobe Express , encouraging students in all fields to strengthen their digital literacy, embrace their creativity, and take charge of their learning.

“People worldwide equate the Adobe brand with quality, creativity, and innovation,” explains Cynthia Teniente-Matson, President of SJSU. “By bringing Adobe Creative Cloud apps like Adobe Express into classrooms, we’ve reimagined how we serve historically underrepresented student populations. They now have easier and quicker access to tools to learn skills that set them up for future success.”

case study of communication

“Guiding students to be both critical digital consumers and creators prepares them for the modern workforce and gives them an advantage when competing for jobs.”

Kate Miffitt

Director for Innovation, Office of the Chancellor, The California State University

The right skills for any field

Most business jobs today require some digital fluency. Think about managers creating training materials for employees, scientists presenting findings at a conference, or contractors sharing project details with clients. Around 45% of the CSU courses currently include some level of technology in the curriculum. By making Adobe apps available in classrooms, the CSU schools teach students how to work with new technologies to set them apart no matter their future career.

“CSU graduates enter into a tech-driven world,” explains Kate Miffitt, Director for Innovation, Office of the Chancellor, The California State University. “Guiding students to be both critical digital consumers and creators prepares them for the modern workforce and gives them an advantage when competing for jobs.”

case study of communication

At Fresno State, 100% of the students completing the capstone broadcast journalism class in Spring 2023 found jobs immediately after graduation, many working in newsrooms as reporters, producers or designers, or they went onto graduate school. According to Faith Sidlow, Chair of the Media, Communications, and Journalism Department at Fresno State, a lot of that success is because students know how to create professional-looking broadcasts using Adobe Creative Cloud apps to edit video, create visuals, and animate motion graphics.

Lyric Kochendorfer, a first-generation SJSU student studying Radio, Television, and Film, values having access to Adobe apps. “Creativity benefits everyone,” says Kochendorfer. “Whether in the classroom or in my personal life, it opens doors for me to take on new challenges.”

Equal access for all

To close the digital gap, the CSU system makes technology readily available. But that’s not just limited to providing Adobe Creative Cloud licenses for all students. Working with easy-to-use apps such as Express help students start innovating faster.

“It only takes a day to teach students how to use Express templates to create videos, make posters, or build multimedia pages, so they can start telling stories right away,” says Tina Korani, Assistant Professor of Digital Media at SJSU.

Tony Bui, a master’s in library information science student at SJSU, likes that he can access Express on his mobile device. “I can create visuals on my phone and make updates anywhere. It’s so fast and simple to work with Adobe Express,” says Bui. “I love using it to create animations to make projects more engaging.”

case study of communication

Club flyer created in Adobe Express by SJSU student Samantha Figueroa Lopez

Students rely on the online tools to efficiently collaborate with classmates and update projects from anywhere. Samantha Figueroa Lopez, a senior engineering student at SJSU, creates flyers for club events, and shares drafts with club leadership to review.

“My schoolwork is my priority, and I need as much time to study as possible,” says Figueroa Lopez. “Express lets me work fast while still getting great results.”

case study of communication

“When students create, they come away with a much deeper knowledge of their subject. They don’t just think about what they’re learning, but how to communicate it to the world.”

Vincent Del Casino

Provost and Senior Vice President, San José State University

Engaging students in learning

Beyond traditional design or media fields, learning visual communication skills inspires more students to approach their work differently.

For instance, SJSU accounting and finance students use Adobe Audition to create podcasts highlighting what they’re learning. Along the way, they’re challenged to assess their coursework and come up with clear explanations about what they’ve learned. Similarly, for geographic information systems (GIS) students, they can turn complex information into a visual story to explain to clients what they’re seeing with drone footage.

“When students create, they come away with a much deeper knowledge of their subject,” says Vincent Del Casino, Provost and Senior Vice President at SJSU. “They don’t just think about what they’re learning, but how to communicate it to the world.”

case study of communication

“It’s our mission to educate Californians and develop our state’s and nation’s future leaders. Adobe Creative Cloud is one of our top tools for setting students up for success now and in the future.”

Amir Dabirian

Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, California State University, Fullerton

Bringing emerging tech into classrooms

When teaching the next generation of leaders, CSU is always on the lookout for new technologies that give students an edge. Generative AI has the potential to boost student productivity.

John Delacruz, Associate Professor of Advertising Creative and Associate Director of the School of Journalism at SJSU, sees the ability to explore and iterate on ideas as a big benefit of generative AI. In his Design Fundamentals class, he assigns an iteration project that challenges students to create as many thumbnail-sized images as possible about a simple concept, such as an egg.

case study of communication

“After ten iterations, students start running out of ideas because they made all of the obvious egg images. They need to start thinking creatively about different contexts, meanings, or sayings that involve eggs,” says Delacruz. “Generative AI can kick-start creativity by helping students think outside the box.”

Amir Dabirian, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs at California State University, Fullerton, sees long-term value in teaching students visual communications skills. “It’s our mission to educate Californians and develop our state’s and nation’s future leaders. Adobe Creative Cloud is one of our top tools for setting students up for success now and in the future.”

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Computer-Mediated Communication in Study Abroad: L2 Acquisition of Japanese Speech Style

In this talk, Joy Maa, Ph.D. candidate at Carnegie Mellon University, will present a case study that examines the role of written computer-mediated communication (CMC) within study abroad (SA) for second language (L2) pragmatics development from the perspective of language socialization theory.

Specifically, Maa considers the L2 socialization of an L1 German-L2 Japanese learner studying abroad in Japan into the use of Japanese speech style (desu/masu and da-tai) in her interactions with a Japanese native speaker peer on LINE, a popular Japanese text messaging application. This talk examines changes in the learner’s understanding and use of speech style in CMC over time, as well as the potential sources of those changes. Data collected over an academic semester from the CMC messages, interviews, stimulated verbal recalls, journals, and questionnaires revealed that the focal participant consistently assigned certain social meanings to speech style, such as formality and social distance to desu/masu and informality to da-tai. On the other hand, her awareness and understanding of style shifting (i.e., switching between the speech styles within a single conversation) changed over time. This change was accompanied by her learning of desu/masu for indexing self-presentation, which was in large part due to her relationship with her native speaker interlocutor and the latter’s use of speech style in LINE.

The findings of this study point to the role of CMC-in-SA as a context of L2 socialization, the affordances and limitations of naturalistic CMC for pragmatics learning, and possibilities for CMC combined with instruction for the teaching of L2 pragmatics.

Georgia Tech

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Repetition, Communication, and Coordination: A Modular QSR Case Study

Modular construction has always required extra coordination and decision-making before finalized units are installed on site. Many manufacturers and designers have developed their own processes, with critical iterating to make sure the product arrives in one piece.

Now imagine ensuring successful repetition with a quick service restaurant (QSR) module that is 95 percent built in a factory. Then imagine shipping, delivering, and installing it on a foundation, with the goal of having the restaurant operating as soon as possible. That means installing in weeks, not months.

So, what’s the magic behind this process? Repetition, communication, and coordination.

modular QSR rendering

Renderings of single-story modular QSR buildings from sgblocks and CSHQA.

Dan Gelatt, Director of Business Development and Field Operations at Safe & Green Holdings Corp., and Jesse Goldman, Principal Architect at CSHQA Architects figured out a working formula to bring their QSR design from paper to reality, with all the critical information included to ensure no screw remained loose.

At this year’s (2024) World of Modular, both Goldman and Gelatt will be presenting their case study on the design, delivery, and installation of this QSR as a super-wide module.

Leading up to Modular, Then to Quick Service Restaurants

Before jumping onto this particular project, Goldman headed his own firm with a diverse background in architecture before joining CSHQA and partnering with Safe & Green Holdings for the first time on a modular project. He found that he “really liked the puzzle of it.”

“I’ve worked on a multitude of different projects, anything from arenas to healthcare, offices, restaurants,” he said. “I really liked the idea of trying to figure out the multiple layers of construction that modular provides.”

Gelatt’s experience in the construction business spans over 20 years, both working in conventional and the modular space, before landing his spot at Safe & Green Holdings. From there, he was exposed to container modifications and worked with David Cross, whom he calls “the leader in that space.”

According to David Cross, VP of Business Development at Safe & Green Holdings, QSR projects take up about five percent of the current portfolio “with a commitment to growth.”

The corporation expanded with SG Echo LLC, a Modular Manufacturer, with two locations in Oklahoma. Both of these factories have over 55,000 square feet of production capacities.

The Tough Work of Communication and Coordination

QSR-Renderings-5_1200x600

CSHQA and Safe & Green Holdings seemed almost destined to work together, given each company’s portfolio backgrounds. CSHQA has a lot of experience with restaurant work (QSR work) and has a strong modular background, according to Jesse.

“There is a good marriage of projects right there,” he said. “This just made a lot of sense from our team and from the SG team to move forward with this project and start developing a product that was a little bit different than potentially what some of our competitors are producing, both in the architectural order and the factory side.”

Each company’s background laid out the foundation, but the continued dedication to open communication and coordination is what keeps the partnership humming, according to Dan.

“We value each other’s opinion and incorporate it into the design,” said Gelatt. “The key is the coordination of the drawings, calling out the scopes and responsibilities on the drawings, listening to what it takes to complete the work within a factory, and onsite. Incorporating those into the design makes it more efficient and it eliminates finger pointing.

”On top of constant and open communication between the companies, there is also the matter of making sure that all relevant parties are updated and are able to adapt and respond in kind. This requires a lot of thinking ahead," said Gelatt.

Making the Usual More Unusual

The workload between the design firm and the manufacturer was set. The two communicated constantly, with Gelatt providing on-the-ground updates as the module was being delivered and installed.

“I’ll be out in the field during the install so I can come back and give feedback,” he said. “That way, I can tell the design team and the factory ‘hey this worked really well, let’s keep it.’ ‘Let’s, look at tweaking this? This is what happened when we did this.’”

Taking the standard parameters and design elements of a QSR and shipping it by a double-drop deck trailer as one cohesive prefabricated functional unit took some creative thinking. Which is where Jesse and his team at CSHQA came in. How could they place a unit that was about 16 feet and 10 inches wide and 40 feet in length?

“We need more detail, more understanding and more accuracy in our drawings on some of these,” said Goldman. “We’re looking at plumbing accuracy to the quarter of an inch, whereas that’s well beyond the accuracy or what we would ever draw on a stick-built building.”

Considerations for Installing a QSR Module

Modules can be installed in any number of ways, especially if you’re working with multiple units. The decision to deliver it as a whole unit however, eliminated the need to address matelines. It also left the question of how to install the unit upon arrival. The size of the unit also made setting a bit thornier.

“Traditionally if you were doing more of a traditional modular retail housing unit, you would never go up to that wide. You would bring in multiple units and have a mateline in between the units,” said Goldman. “What was different and what made this effective with the QSR model was not having that mateline and reducing the time it took to set the unit and to not have to see together two units, which would take a week or two that let them start selling products sooner.”

Keeping efficiency in mind, Goldman and CSHQA decided that a top-picked unit was the way to go.

Delivering a Super Wide Module Across the Country

As the QSR was delivered whole to reduce time spent on setting the module on the foundation, that created another series of obstacles. There was the matter of how to ship the parapet. If the parapet was connected from the get-go, the unit would be too tall to ship.

In the end, the top pick served a two-fold purpose.

“Jesse and his team took it a step further where that top pick is that connection,” said Gelatt. “Now we’re sticking the parapet over top of it and now reusing that connection to fasten down the parapet to the modular building. It’s that type of thinking that leads to the success of the project, the efficiency of the project.”

While the dimensions were not completely out of the norm for a module, driving a module that was a little over 1600 feet wide by 40 feet in length was going to be another puzzle to sort out. Ultimately it was decided that the unit would travel on a double drop deck trailer.

The first one shipped from Durant, Oklahoma to Osceola, Arkansas—a distance of at least 500 miles. The third one is making an even longer trip out to the Pacific Northwest, or about 2,000 miles.

Repetition Makes the Dream Work

Dan Gelatt

Presenting Modular QSR at World of Modular

Daniel gelatt, director of business development & field operations, safe & green holdings corp., jesse goldman, principal architect, cshqa architects.

All stakeholders can benefit from the in-depth process and tight-knit relationship required for modular building projects: owners, developers, architects, manufacturers, city officials, plan examiners, general contractors, anyone in the construction industry. Both Gelatt and Goldman ultimately want attendees to gain new insight—or at least new ideas—on how to make modular happen.

“I want them to take away that this is a viable alternative to what they’ve been looking at,” Goldman said. “That there are other ways of doing this and we’re exploring these other ways to make it even more viable...it’s a continuous operation of becoming better and making these better and making them more economical and ultimately making more money for the people who decide to take this route.”

And Dan agrees.

“They have another tool in their toolbox that is an alternative to conventional construction. It’s going to be structurally sounder, and it’s going to be just as efficient,” he said.

Coming back to the drawing table after the project was completed and keeping an open mind is also what allowed the success of these projects, according to Gelatt.

“You want to repeat the process, have that collaboration, what worked, what didn’t work, what made sense, what didn’t make sense,” said Gelatt. “Especially with QSRs, thinking about the workflow of the interior space, there’s a lot of detail that you have to go through each and every time. And that’s why, again, the partnership and collaboration have to be there.”

About the Author: Dawn Killough is a freelance construction writer with over 25 years of experience working with construction companies, subcontractors and general contractors. Her published work can be found at dkilloughwriter.com .

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  • Published: 06 February 2024

A triple increase in global river basins with water scarcity due to future pollution

  • Mengru Wang   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2543-4871 1 ,
  • Benjamin Leon Bodirsky   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8242-6712 2 ,
  • Rhodé Rijneveld   ORCID: orcid.org/0009-0005-7363-2767 1 ,
  • Felicitas Beier   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8725-7663 2 , 3 ,
  • Mirjam P. Bak   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-7183-9864 1 ,
  • Masooma Batool   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-1385-2512 4 ,
  • Bram Droppers   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-9559-8986 5 ,
  • Alexander Popp   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9500-1986 2 ,
  • Michelle T. H. van Vliet   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2597-8422 5 &
  • Maryna Strokal   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-8063-7743 1  

Nature Communications volume  15 , Article number:  880 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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Water security is at stake today. While climate changes influence water availability, urbanization and agricultural activities have led to increasing water demand as well as pollution, limiting safe water use. We conducted a global assessment of future clean-water scarcity for 2050s by adding the water pollution aspect to the classical water quantity-induced scarcity assessments. This was done for >10,000 sub-basins focusing on nitrogen pollution in rivers by integrating land-system, hydrological and water quality models. We found that water pollution aggravates water scarcity in >2000 sub-basins worldwide. The number of sub-basins with water scarcity triples due to future nitrogen pollution worldwide. In 2010, 984 sub-basins are classified as water scarce when considering only quantity-induced scarcity, while 2517 sub-basins are affected by quantity & quality-induced scarcity. This number even increases to 3061 sub-basins in the worst case scenario in 2050. This aggravation means an extra 40 million km 2 of basin area and 3 billion more people that may potentially face water scarcity in 2050. Our results stress the urgent need to address water quality in future water management policies for the Sustainable Development Goals.

Introduction

Water is an essential resource for our life and nature. Yet only 0.02% of the water on Earth is available to people, plants, and animals. Water availability is mostly assessed through flows from rivers to seas, with an estimated global annual discharge of 45,500 km 3 /year, largely depending on the spatial and temporal distribution of precipitation and evaporation 1 , 2 . Current global annual withdrawals are lower than global annual discharge. However, their spatial and temporal variations cause a mismatch, leading to water scarcity among regions 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 .

Water scarcity generally refers to the condition wherein the water availability cannot meet the demand of nature and society 6 . Water scarcity is expected to be exaggerated in the future, being largely affected by both climate and socio-economic changes. Climate change alters spatial and temporal patterns of the hydrological cycle, leading to changes in water availability, such as river discharge 7 , 8 . For example, Hagemann, et al. 9 state that in 2100, water availability is expected to increase in many river basins but also severely decrease in other river basins due to climate change. Furthermore, socio-economic changes, such as land-use change, irrigation, and dam constructions, directly affect the hydrological cycle by altering the timing and magnitude of water discharge 10 , 11 . Fekete et al. 12 state that direct anthropogenic alterations in basins of major economic areas, such as India and China, exceed the effect of climate change considerably, leading to a larger decline in runoff in the future. In addition, socio-economic changes also affect water demand. Population and economic growth have been the main drivers for growing food demand, increased living standards, changing food and energy consumption patterns, and expansions of irrigated agriculture. These changes have led to ever-increasing global water demand, causing water scarcity 3 , 13 , 14 .

Until a few years ago, global water scarcity assessments focused mainly on changes in the quantity perspective of water availability 4 , 6 , 8 , 11 , 15 , 16 . However, decreasing water quality caused by increasing and newly emerging pollutants also became an important reason for limiting water to be safely used by nature and humans, aggravating the water scarcity problems. For example, agricultural intensification and urbanization have added excessive pollutants such as nutrients, pathogens, plastics, and other chemicals to the water bodies 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 . Among the pollutants, excessive nitrogen (N) inputs to aquatic ecosystems can have negative consequences such as harmful algae blooms, hypoxia, and fish kills and complicate the use as drinking water 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 . This leads to an aggravation of water scarcity because pollution limits water to be safely used.

Two studies have quantified regional water scarcity by innovatively integrating assessments of both water quality and quantity 26 , 27 . Van Vliet et al. 28 , 29 have been the first to assess water scarcity on a global scale using a sector-specific approach focusing on multiple pollutants including nitrogen for the historical period of 2000–2010. In their studies, water scarcity is assessed as the ratio of sectoral water withdrawals of acceptable water quality to the overall water availability taking into consideration of environmental flow requirements (EFRs – water flows to sustain freshwater and estuarine ecosystems). To our knowledge, there is a lack of global assessment that quantifies future water scarcity based on nitrogen pollution in rivers under climate and socio-economic scenarios. Such an assessment is essential because a better understanding of future global hotspots of water scarcity under socio‐economic and climate changes will contribute to formulating effective water management policies 6 , 28 , 30 , 31 . Subsequently, this facilitates the supply of clean water for all, one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030 32 .

This study aims to assess future global clean-water scarcity in 2050 under climate and socio-economic changes. ‘Clean-water scarcity’ is assessed with two indicators: a water quantity-based and a water quality-based indicator (see Methods). We define ‘clean-water scarcity’ as the availability of surface water with acceptable quality. Our assessment is done for >10,000 sub-basins worldwide based on their river discharges (water quantity) and nitrogen pollution levels (water quality). To this end, we combine the MARINA-Nutrients (Model to Assess River Inputs of pollutaNts to seAs), MAgPIE (Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment), and VIC (Variable Infiltration Capacity) models into an integrated modeling framework (Fig.  1 , Methods). Results of this modeling framework are used to calculate the indicators for ‘clean-water scarcity’ for 2010 and 2050 under three scenarios assuming different storylines of climate changes and socio-economic activities that affect water scarcity (see Methods). Next, we identify the future global hotspots of severe clean-water scarcity and whether this is mainly driven by water quantity or water quality issues (i.e., nitrogen pollution). Last, we discuss the interactions between water scarcity, food production, and society (i.e. population and sewage) in the hotspots, taking the perspective of achieving the SDGs in these hotspots. Our results contribute to a better understanding of future water scarcity caused by changes in both water availability and water pollution. The hotspot analysis also facilitates proactive water management strategies for sub-basins where water scarcity will be potentially high in the future.

figure 1

SSP-RCP-N is the scenario along the Nitrogen futures in the Shared Socio-economic Pathways 79 developed based on the Shared-economic pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). VIC is the Variable Infiltration Capacity model. MAgPIE is the Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment. MARINA-Nutrients is the Model to Assess River Inputs of pollutaNts to seAs.

Water scarcity hotspots of clean water

We find that current and future water scarcity becomes a substantially more severe issue globally when implementing our clean-water scarcity assessment. The number of sub-basins facing severe scarcity doubles in 2010 and may even triple in 2050 in our clean-water scarcity assessment, compared to the classical water scarcity assessment that only considers water availability from the quantity perspective (Fig.  2 ). Due to their high nitrogen pollution levels, many sub-basins in South China, Central Europe, North America, and Africa become water scarcity hotspots. This also implies more than a doubling of the global area and population affected by severe water scarcity in both 2010 and 2050, meaning that up to 40 million km 2 of extra global drainage area, including highly biodiverse aquatic ecosystems and an additional 3 billion people are facing water scarcity challenges due to nitrogen pollution (Table  1 ).

figure 2

Classical water scarcity assessment is only based on water quantity ( S quantity ), while clean-water scarcity assessment is based on both water quantity ( S quantity ) and quality ( S quality ). Equations on how S quantity and S quality are calculated are available in the Method section. The numbers in the arrows show the number of hotspots for classical water scarcity and clean-water scarcity assessment. Hotspots are sub-basins where either S quantity or S quality or both are considered high in Table  2 . For 2050, water scarcity is calculated for three scenarios: SSP1-RCP2p6, SSP2-RCP2p6, SSP5-RCP8p5. Details of the scenarios based on the Shared-economic pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are available in Supplementary Tables  S9 – S11 in the Supporting Information.

In 2010, one-fourth (2517 out of 10,226) of the global sub-basins face severe scarcity of clean water, according to our assessment (hotspots, Table  2 ). These hotspot sub-basins are mainly distributed in southern parts of North America, Europe, parts of Northern Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, China, and Southeast Asia (Fig.  2 ). These sub-basins cover 32% of the global land area. About 80% of the total population lives there, contributing to 84% of global total nitrogen (N) losses to rivers from human waste. Agricultural activities are usually intensive in these regions. They cover 44% of the global agricultural land, receive 84% and 53% of the global N applications from fertilizer and manure, and produce 69% of N in global harvested crops.

The majority (2218; 88%) of the hotspot sub-basins experience clean-water scarcity dominated by nitrogen pollution. Quality-based water scarcity hotspots occurred in southern parts of North America, Europe, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, China, India, and parts of Northern Africa (Fig.  2 and Supplementary Fig. S3 ). These sub-basins cover 24% of the global drainage area, and 76% of the population lives there (Supplementary Table  S7 ). Whereas the ‘classical water scarcity’ assessment based solely on water quantity indicates 984 hotspot sub-basins, covering 18% of the global land area and 42% of the global population (Table  1 ). Compared to the clean-water scarcity assessment, the classical assessment shows a much lower level of water scarcity in South China, Europe, and North America, where water pollution levels are high as the result of urbanization and agricultural activities, and the relatively high runoff that transports N to rivers (Fig.  2 , Supplementary Figs. S4 and S8 ). Clearly, quality-induced water scarcity hotspots affected more ecosystems and people than quantity-induced water scarcity hotspots in 2010 (Supplementary Figs.  S5 and S6 in SI ).

Like hotspot regions, scarcity of clean water in non-hotspot sub-basins where clean-water scarcity is estimated at low or moderate levels was also dominated by nitrogen pollution. In 2010, more than 2000 sub-basins face potential water scarcity due to moderate water pollution, distributed mainly in South America and Africa, but also in North America, Northern Asia, and Australia (Fig.  2 ). These sub-basins cover 39% of the global drainage area and 18% of the population lives there. Sub-basins that currently do not face water scarcity issues with high water quality and high water quantity are mostly in sparsely populated regions such as northern parts of North America and Asia, and central parts of Australia (Fig.  2 ).

In 2050, the number of clean-water scarcity hotspot sub-basins is projected to remain high (2587 in SSP1-RCP2p6, 2785 in SSP2-RCP2p6) or even increase (3061 in SSP5-RCP8p5), with quality-induced scarcity dominating the globe (Figs.  2 and 3 ). In the worst-case scenario (SSP5-RCP8p5), the clean-water scarcity hotspots are calculated to cover 48% of the total drainage area, compared to 32% in 2010, and with 91% of the total global population living there, compared to 80% in 2010 (Fig.  2 ). Like in 2010, water scarcity hotspots are mostly found in sub-basins with intensive agricultural activities (Fig.  4 ). In 2050, the shares of agricultural area, nitrogen inputs, and surpluses in the hotspot sub-basins to the global total have large increases among the scenarios. For example, in SSP5-RCP8p5, the hotspots regions cover 68% (44% in 2010) of the global agricultural land. These regions are projected to receive 89% and 80% of the global nitrogen inputs from fertilizer and manure, respectively, in 2050 (this was 84% for fertilizers and 53% for manure in 2010). They are projected to contribute to 84% of the global agricultural N surplus in 2050 (this was 69% in 2010). Another important contributor to water pollution in the hotspot sub-basins in SSP5-RCP8p5 is the N losses to rivers from human waste. These N losses are projected to account for 91% of the total global losses due to the high sewage connections and poor wastewater treatment in this economic-first and highly urbanized future scenario.

figure 3

The changes are projected for three scenarios: SSP1-RCP2p6, SSP2-RCP2p6, SSP5-RCP8p5. Details of the scenarios based on the Shared-economic pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are available in Supplementary Tables  S9 – S11 in the Supporting Information. Hotspots are sub-basins where either the levels of scarcity for water quantity or quality or both are considered high in Table  2 .

figure 4

The spider charts show the shares of area (sub-basin drainage area), population, N (nitrogen) inputs to rivers from human waste, agriculture land, N fertilizer application in agriculture, N manure application in agriculture, N in harvested crops, and N surplus in agriculture (defined as total N inputs to agriculture minus N outputs by crop uptake and animal grazing) in the clean-water scarcity hotspots (% of the continental total) in 2010 and 2050. Clean-water scarcity hotspots are sub-basins where either the levels of scarcity for water quantity-driven or quality-driven or both are considered high in Table  2 . For 2050, clean-water scarcity is calculated for three scenarios: SSP1-RCP2p6, SSP2-RCP2p6, SSP5-RCP8p5. Details of the scenarios based on the Shared-economic pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are available in Supplementary Tables  S9 – S11 in the Supporting Information.

The spatial distribution of the clean-water scarcity hotspots in 2050 is similar to 2010, but it is estimated to expand to many continents, mostly in Africa (Figs. 3 and 4 ). Africa is projected to have large increases in water scarcity, mainly caused by severe water pollution. In 2010, water scarcity hotspots in Africa cover 20% of the continental area, with 27% of the continental population living in the African sub-basins in 2010. This is projected to increase to 66% (drainage area) and 88% (population) if no improved water management options are adopted in 2050 (SSP5-RCP8p5). Yet even with improved water management (SSP1), we still project an increase to 27% (drainage area) and 41% (population) in the hotspots. The water scarcity issues will remain severe in other continents, particularly in Asia, Central America, Europe, and North America.

Water pollution is an important cause of water scarcity

Our water scarcity assessment shows that nitrogen pollution in rivers is an important cause of water scarcity in 2010 and will likely continue causing water scarcity in 2050. This calls for urgent proactive pollution control strategies to reduce the impact of future potential water scarcity on nature and humans. A better understanding of the spatial distribution and main sources of nitrogen pollution to develop such strategies is needed. We, therefore, use the MARINA-Nutrients (Model to Assess River Inputs of pollutaNts to seAs) model and analyze nitrogen inputs to rivers at the sub-basin scale by sources for 2010 and 2050.

In 2010, we estimate a total amount of 106 Tg/year total dissolved nitrogen (TDN) inputs to rivers, with the highest loads occurring in China, India, Central Africa, South America, and parts of North America (Fig.  5 and Supplementary Fig. S7 ). In 2050, the total TDN inputs to rivers are expected to be 112–147 kton/year among the three scenarios. This corresponds to an increase of 6–39% compared to 2010. Taking the worst-case scenario (SSP5-RCP8p5), this increase can be explained by the increased anthropogenic sources such as human waste and synthetic fertilizers (Fig.  5 ). In this scenario, sewage is projected to become the dominant source of nitrogen pollution in rivers mainly due to the activities around fast urbanization (i.e., population growth, more population connected to sewage systems in cities), and insufficient wastewater treatment technologies and infrastructures in this scenario. The dominant source of nitrogen pollution in the SSP1-RCP2p6 and SSP2-RCP2p6 scenarios differ from SSP5-RCP8p5. Agriculture (i.e. fertilizer application) is the most important source in these two scenarios as the result of food production activities to feed the growing population. Sewage has much smaller contributions in these two scenarios, benefiting from the improved sewage connection as well as improved treatment. The highest TDN inputs in SSP1-RCP2p6 and SSP2-RCP2p6 are found in similar regions as described for 2010 (Fig.  5 ).

figure 5

The maps below show Total Dissolved Nitrogen (TDN) inputs to rivers (left panel) and the dominant source of TDN inputs to rivers (right panel) at the sub-basin scale in 2010 and 2050. For 2050, three scenarios are analyzed: SSP1-RCP2p6, SSP2-RCP2p6, SSP5-RCP8p5. Details of the scenarios based on the Shared-economic pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) are available in Supplementary Tables  S9 – S11 in the Supporting Information.

Water quantity remains important

In addition to the increasing scarcity of clean water caused by water pollution, quantity-induced scarcity driven by water availability and water withdrawals remains an important issue in 2050 scenarios. This is due to the climate change-induced changes in water availability through alterations in the hydrological cycle and the increasing water demand or withdrawals driven by socio-economic developments.

Water availability is projected to increase in more than two-thirds (69–72%) of the sub-basins and decrease in the rest of the sub-basins among the scenarios between 2010 and 2050 (Supplementary Fig.  S8 ). In our study, water availability is defined as the cumulative natural river discharges at the sub-basin outlets. However, the changes in water availability vary largely among the continents and individual sub-basins. For example, the total water availability (the sum of river discharges of sub-basins) in Africa, Asia and North America is expected to increase by 4–6% between 2010 and 2050 for the three scenarios. In contrast, the total water availability in Central America, Europe, Oceania and South America is projected to decrease by up to 4% during 2010–2050. The changes among the individual sub-basins vary from −156 to +117 km 3 /year between 2010 and 2050, showing large extremes in water availability which may exaggerate water scarcity in dry regions in 2050. Global water withdrawals are projected to increase by 10–12% among SSP-RCP scenarios in 2050 (Supplementary Figs.  S10 and S11 in SI ), leaving future generations under increasing pressure of water scarcity. This increase is due to the future higher water demand, mostly from urbanization and food production.

Different challenges among hotpots

While future hotspots of clean-water scarcity are identified mainly in China, India, Europe, North America and in the worst-case scenario (SSP5-RCP8p5) also in Central Africa. The causes of water scarcity differ among these regions, presenting different challenges that need to be addressed to reduce water scarcity.

For quantity-induced scarcity, the main causes are the excessive withdrawals (high water withdrawal over water availability). The share of water withdrawals among sectors varies largely across continents (Supplementary Fig.  S12 in SI ). Irrigation contributes most to surface water withdrawals on the global scale and is the most important driver of quantity-induced scarcity in most regions including China, India and South America. However, this differs in Europe, where irrigation contributes to less than 30% of water withdrawals. The most important water withdrawal is the industrial sector in Europe. A similar situation is observed in North America, where the industry takes almost 50% of the continental water withdrawal due to the large water demand for energy production (e.g., thermoelectric power plant) and manufacturing 33 .

For quality-induced scarcity, the main causes of high TDN inputs to rivers are also different among hotspots. In 2010, TDN inputs to rivers are mainly driven by the low nitrogen use efficiencies in China and India (Supplementary Table  S3 in SI ), high production in Europe and North America (Supplementary Fig.  S19 in SI ), and by atmospheric N deposition and fixation on natural land in South America and Central Africa. In the future, the main cause of TDN inputs to rivers is similar across most hotspots in SSP1 and SSP2, which is agricultural production. It is important to note that although the nitrogen use efficiencies have improved to high levels, the high food production in China, India, Europe and North America (e.g., Mississippi river) driven by food demand still leads to high N surpluses in agriculture (Supplementary Fig.  S20 in SI ). In SSP5, pollution is driven worldwide mainly by sewage as described above due to global urbanization and inadequate development of sewage treatment. Atmospheric N deposition and fixation on natural land remain the main source of TDN inputs to rivers in South America and Central Africa in the future, while agricultural N surpluses become increasingly more important in SSP5 (Supplementary Fig.  S20 in SI ).

There is a growing awareness that water quality aggregates water scarcity in many regions. Nonetheless, most global water scarcity studies focused solely on water quantity aspects 6 . To our knowledge, there are two indicators that consider water quality explicitly. The first is the water quality dilution (WSq) indicator 28 , 29 , which has been applied for several water quality constituents (e.g. temperature, salinity, organic pollution, total nitrogen and total phosphorus) on a global scale. The second is the Quantity-Quality-Environmental flow requirement (QQE) indicator 26 , 27 , which has only been applied in China. Based on these indicators, we introduce ‘clean-water scarcity’ as a terminology and present a global assessment accounting for both water quantity and quality based on global nitrogen pollution under different scenarios of climatic and socio-economic developments. To do this, we developed and applied two water scarcity indicators (a water quantity-based and quality-based indicator) for global rivers at the sub-basin scale.

Overall, our assessment identifies similar hotspot regions for 2010 as those existing studies based only on the water quantity aspects of water scarcity in the period of 1971–2005 1 , 7 , 13 , 34 , 35 . However, our scenario analysis reveals a higher number of water scarcity hotspots than the existing quantity-focused studies. Moreover, our assessment provides a more detailed view on non-hotspot areas by differentiating between low, moderate, and high levels of scarcity, considering both quantity and quality aspects. Such information has the added value of identifying those regions facing potential water scarcity challenges if water resources and pollution are poorly managed. For example, the baseline simulation (1971–2000) in the study of Hanasaki et al. 13 identifies similar water scarcity regions as we do for 2010. Whereas their study predicts reduced future water scarcity in Central Europe, India, China, and Africa, we find increased scarcity in those regions because of poor water quality. While the use of different models and datasets in the above-mentioned studies affects the distribution of water scarcity regions, the differences originate largely from neglecting the impact of water pollution (nitrogen in our study) on water scarcity.

Estimations of the population experiencing scarcity of clean water in our study are generally higher than in previous studies focusing only on water quantity 3 , 4 , 7 , 36 . Previous studies estimated that between 25% and 65% of the population lived in severely water-scarce areas in 1995–2005. Looking only at water quantity, we estimated that 45% of the global population lived in areas with severe water scarcity in 2010. Yet, if we also take into account water quality issues, our estimate rises to 80% of the global population living in water-scarce regions in the same year. This strongly agrees with the study of Vörösmarty et al. 37 who found that nearly 80% of the world’s population lives in areas facing water security challenges from both water quantity and quality perspectives.

We consider quality-based water scarcity as severe if nitrogen concentrations exceed the threshold (1 mg/L TDN) to avoid eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems, following De Vries et al. 38 , Yu et al. 39 . This may lead to a bias toward environmental water scarcity. Another way to deal with the different thresholds could be to focus on N thresholds for specific sectoral uses rather than the total water availability in line with the study of van Vliet et al. 29 , who identified a similar global spatial distribution of clean-water scarcity as we identify. For example, the threshold for the agricultural sector is linked to irrigation withdrawals (80 mg/L N), while the threshold for drinking water (11 mg/L N) is used to calculate domestic withdrawals. Water scarcity could be assessed for each sector specifically instead of computing a total water scarcity. However, water allocation-related issues arise here, such as how to include water allocation among sectors. Here we decided to take the stringent threshold for the aquatic ecosystem whose ecosystem functions (e.g., irrigation water supply, fishery, recreation) will negatively impact both nature and humans. While one can argue that this strict threshold may lead to an overestimation of quality-based water scarcity, even stricter standards (0.25–0.5 mg N/L for rivers, comparable to the moderate levels in our assessment) have been introduced by United Nations to assess water security for ecosystem and human use in their SDG guidelines 40 .

We conducted a clean-water scarcity analysis on annual temporal and sub-basin spatial scales with a focus on nitrogen pollution. The assumption is that the annual cumulative natural river discharge at sub-basin outlets represents water availability, annual summed gridded sectoral withdrawals represent water withdrawals, and the annual cumulative N load represents water quality in the sub-basins. Consequently, the water scarcity indicators generate an average value for each sub-basin, which aggregates the differences in time and space. Yet, our assessment masks intra- and inter-annual variabilities in the freshwater resources 3 , 41 . Most importantly, the annual discharge does not represent the proportions of river flow that derive from base flow and stormflow. This means that the annual discharge might consist of a constant base flow available throughout the year but could also represent a high storm flow with a relatively low base flow. Whilst the former limits water scarcity, the latter aggravates among seasons. This issue is apparent in the future climate change scenario, particularly in RCP8p5 regional higher water availability might originate from higher seasonal fluctuations with higher stormflows 42 . This holds the same for the EFRs in our study, for which we calculated annual EFRs as a fraction (ranging between 30–38%) of the total available water for sub-basins based the Variable Monthly Flow Method approach on Pastor et al. 43 . The intra-annual variabilities in very wet or dry rivers may lead to a higher or lower monthly EFR in these rivers, ranging from 30 to 60% among sub-basins and seasons globally. Additionally, conducting a water scarcity analysis on an annual scale does not consider seasonal variability in nitrogen pollution 44 , 45 . Exner-Kittridge et al. 45 have observed a seasonal trend in nitrogen concentrations in rivers that increases in winter and decreases in summer. This phenomenon can be attributed to various factors such as higher in-stream nitrogen uptake and denitrification rates during the summer compared to the winter, seasonal biochemical changes, or the seasonal timing of fertilizer application and plant uptake. Thus, whilst our results indicate overall annual water scarcity, the level of scarcity may vary largely among seasons. This means that our assessment should be used and interpreted to estimate the global distribution of clean-water scarcity and their trends over time rather than zoom into the details of intra-annual scarcity in specific regions.

We assessed clean-water scarcity based on the integrated modeling framework (Fig.  1 ) that links land use and agriculture, hydrological and water quality models. While the models provide great opportunities for exploring future trends and causes of water scarcity, there are uncertainties around the model inputs and modeling approaches of MAgPIE, VIC and MARINA-Nutrients. Below we discuss why we consider our modeling approach reliable and sufficient in assessing future clean-water scarcity.

Uncertainties in our assessment from MAgPIE are mainly related to the estimated nitrogen (N) budgets (see Section MAgPIE in SI for the modeling approach). To build trust in our assessment, we compared our N budget from MAgPIE with a recent high-resolution (5 arc min degree) N dataset from Tian et al. 21 . The result shows a promising comparison. The global total nitrogen inputs to agriculture (cropland and pasture) and non-agriculture are very comparable, despite small differences among the sources as fertilizer, manure, and deposition (Supplementary Tables  S8 in the SI ). For example, the global total N input in 2010s is 267 Tg/year in Tian et al. 21 and 287 Tg/year in this study. The spatial distribution of N inputs is also comparable between Tian et al. 21 and our study (Supplementary Fig.  S21 in SI ). High total N inputs are observed in China, South Asia, Europe, United States and Brazil in both studies. There is an exception for atmospheric deposition. Some regions such as South Africa have higher deposition than in other regions in Tian et al. 21 but not in our study. However, the N load quantified by the MARINA model is not sensitive to changes in atmospheric deposition due to its small contribution to water pollution compared to other sources. This was revealed in the thorough sensitivity analysis in Appendix E of Wang et al. 46 , −/+10% changes in atmospheric deposition in the MARINA model hardly result in any difference in river export of N in MARINA. Considering the comparable total N inputs on land between the two studies, we believe that our results of quality-induced water scarcity hotspots will not change much when using N data from Tian et al. 21 . This comparison provides a high confidence in using the MAgPIE model for our assessment.

VIC’s simulated historical discharge and sectoral water withdrawals compared well against observed discharge 47 and reported domestic, industrial and irrigation water withdrawals 33 . However, multi-model intercomparison studies have shown that differences between hydrological models are the main source of uncertainty in discharge and irrigation water demand projections 8 , 48 , 49 . Therefore, the selection of a single model, the VIC hydrological model in our study impacts the water scarcity results. Nevertheless, we believe the model validation results show an acceptable performance of VIC for assessing water scarcity. VIC model estimates are mostly near the multi-model ensemble means for discharge 50 and irrigation 51 . Moreover, the explicit representation of the energy balance in the VIC model allows the model to comprehensively capture the impacts of radiation changes under climate change, which is highly important for, for example, snow dynamics 50 .

MARINA-Nutrients-Global-1.0 was developed and applied in this study to quantify N load at the sub-basin outlets. The previous versions of this model 17 , 46 , 52 have been evaluated with a convincing performance at both global and regional scales based on the ‘building trust circle’ approach including 1) compare model outputs with measurements and existing studies, 2) compare spatial pattern of pollution hotspots, 3) sensitivity analysis, and 4) compare model inputs with independent datasets. The MARINA model, however, does not consider the legacy pools of N. Considering the historical N use can have an impact on N pollution in groundwater 53 and rivers 54 , while the legacy effects balance out over longer time periods. If N legacy effects were considered, this would likely increase the modeled water pollution in most of the hotspot regions such as China, Europe, North America where historical N use was high, confirming our conclusion that water pollution will become an important cause of clean-water scarcity in these regions. Here, we consider that the MARINA version developed in this study provides a robust assessment of quality driven-water scarcity because of the following reasons. First, the simulation of point source pollution from wastewater has been evaluated as promising in the global study of Strokal et al. 17 . Second, for diffuse source pollution we used data from MAgPIE, which shows good performance as discussed above when compared to N budget in other studies. Third, our modeled results compare very well with other global studies that quantify historical or future N pollution in rivers. For example, our global spatial patterns of N pollution are comparable to the total N patterns for 2000–2010 shown by van Vliet et al. 29 . This is the same for the future that we estimate similar hotspots of N pollution in 2010 and 2050 compared to Beusen et al. 55 .

Our assessment has important Implications for future water management and policies. Strategies to adapt to or mitigate future water scarcity are urgently needed, especially as socio-economic developments continuously increase the world’s dependence on water resources. Adaptation strategies currently focus on quantity-based water scarcity, varying from water-saving irrigation techniques at the sectoral scale to water diversion or reallocation through dams at the catchment scale 31 , 56 , 57 , 58 . Mitigation strategies that reduce water pollution surely need more attention, as revealed by this study, that low water quality will be a critical or even dominant cause of water scarcity in many river basins in the future, and controlling nitrogen pollution is very challenging.

The challenge to control nitrogen pollution mainly arises from current urbanization trends and increasing food demands and waste which both contribute to additional nitrogen losses to water 46 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 . Even in the ambitious SSP1-RCP2p6 scenario, assuming optimistic water management, as well as diet, changes towards lower shares of animal products and food waste, the scarcity of clean water remains high in many regions due to water pollution. Based on source attribution of nutrients in our study and previous water quality assessments 17 , 29 , 63 , improving nutrient management in food production and sewage connection and treatment are urgently needed in densely populated sub-basins to reduce water scarcity.

We took nitrogen pollution as the water quality indicator in our study. However, many other indicators (e.g., salinity, dissolved oxygen, biological demand, pH, temperature, and heavy metals) and newly emerging pollutants (e.g., pathogens, antibiotics, plastics, and pesticides) will likely cause severe water degradation in the future 17 , 18 , 65 , 66 , 67 . Research is thus needed to identify the impacts of these indicators or pollutants on future water scarcity among sectors as a joint effort of the water quality community. The advantage of our clean-water scarcity indicators is that they are not limited to specific pollutants and specific temporal or spatial scales. Therefore, the indicators can be quantified for various individual pollutants across temporal and spatial scales depending on the purpose of the assessment. Another opportunity is to combine our assessment approach with the Water Quality Index (WQI) models 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 . WQI models are powerful tools based on aggregation functions to convert varying water quality datasets to a single water quality index to assess the quality of the waterbody. Such models can thus help to aggregate the quality-based indicators ( S quality ) for individual pollutants to a simple single indicator for the water scarcity assessment. Additionally, a better understanding of the interactions between multiple water pollutants and their sources is very useful for developing strategies to simultaneously control the pollution of multiple pollutants. For example, nutrients, antibiotics, and pathogens share the same source (manure) in animal production. Improved manure management, such as treatment and recycling, will then have synergetic effects in controlling water pollution by all three pollutants.

Moreover, addressing water quality is of significant importance for achieving several Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 32 . Studies show that there are many interactions (synergies and trade-offs) between SDG 6 and other SDGs, such as those goals ensuring food security (SDG 2), sustainable urbanization (SDG 11), responsible production and consumption (SDG 12), and mitigated climate change (SDG 13) 46 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 . Our results show similar potential synergies and trade-offs between the SDGs. For example, we found that water scarcity mostly exists in sub-basins with intensive agricultural production (SDG 2) or/and are densely populated (SDG 11), leading to high pollutant loads and high water withdrawals (SDG 12) from the relatively low water availability due to climate change-induced hydrological changes (SDG 13). Strategies such as reducing fertilizer use to control water pollution in these hotspots may lead to trade-offs that challenge food provision. Such trade-offs can be turned into synergies by applying agricultural practices (e.g., alternative varieties, fertilizing crops based on their nutrient requirement) to improve nutrient efficiencies of crops such that the crop yield is maintained and food demand is met. It is thus essential to consider the interactions between the above-mentioned SDGs in the water scarcity strategies to avoid negative impacts on achieving the goals for food, cities, and climate. Our results about the clean-water scarcity hotspots and their socio-economic and climate characteristics provide a very valuable indication of where and what interactions need to be addressed to mitigate water scarcity as well as ensure sustainable development for other domains of society.

Clean-water scarcity assessment

Many water scarcity indicators consider water quantity, yet only a few consider both water quantity and water quality aspects 6 , 26 , 28 , 29 , 76 , 77 . For example, the Quantity-Quality-EFR (QQE) indicator in Liu et al. 26 was the first being developed and applied to assess both quality and quantity-based water scarcity based on the blue water footprint, gray water footprint, and environmental flow requirements (EFRs). Another example is the water quality dilution (WSq) indicator developed and applied globally to assess historical water scarcity as a proportion of sector-specific water withdrawals of suitable water quality to the total water availability 28 , 29 , 77 . In this study we developed and applied clean-water scarcity indicators considering both aspects, inspired by the Quantity-Quality-EFR (QQE) indicator which has an advantage in quantifying the quality and quantity-based water scarcity separately. Therefore, these clean-water scarcity indicators will enhance the understanding of overall water scarcity, aiding in the determination of whether the scarcity is predominantly due to issues of quantity or quality.

Indicators for clean-water scarcity

We assessed the scarcity of clean water for >10,000 sub-basins worldwide based on two indicators: a quantity-based indicator ( S quantity , Eq. ( 1 )) and a quality-based indicator ( S quality , Eq. ( 2 )).

S quantity is the quantity-based indicator, calculated based on the criticality ratio, i.e., the rate of water use to water availability 78 . \({D}_{j}\) stands for the water withdrawals for sector j in the sub-basins (km 3 /year), \({Q}_{{nat}}\) for the natural river discharge at the sub-basins outlets which stands for total water availability (km 3 /year), and EFR for the environmental flow requirements in the sub-basins (km 3 /year).

S quality is the quality-based indicator. L stands for the pollutant (nitrogen in our study) load at the sub-basins outlets (kton/year), \({Q}_{{act}}\) for the actual river discharge at the sub-basins outlets (km 3 /year), C max for the maximum water quality threshold of the pollutant (mg/L) for specific purposes of water use (1 mg/L total dissolved nitrogen the threshold for sustaining the aquatic ecosystem from eutrophication 38 , 39 ). See Section Data for clean-water scarcity assessment in  Supporting Information (SI) for a detailed description of the data that we derived for the above variables.

Modeling framework to assess clean-water scarcity

To calculate the indicators for clean-water scarcity (Eqs. ( 1 ) and ( 2 )), we combined the MARINA-Nutrients (Model to Assess River Inputs of pollutaNts to seAs), MAgPIE (Model of Agricultural Production and its Impact on the Environment), and VIC (Variable Infiltration Capacity) models into an integrated modeling framework (in Fig.  1 ). We used modeled results of this modeling framework to calculate the quantity-based ( S quantity ) and quality-based ( S quality ) clean-water scarcity indicators. We did this for 2010 and 2050 under the Nitrogen futures in the Shared Socio-economic Pathways 79 developed based on the Shared-economic pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The S quantity and S quality indicators were calculated for the outlets of the sub-basins to assess the level of water scarcity in rivers. Supplementary Table  S1 in the SI presents in detail how each variable in Eqs. ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) was derived using the models in Fig.  1 for 2010 and 2050.

Quantity-based indicator ( S quantity ) was calculated mainly based on simulations of river discharge and sectoral water withdrawal by the VIC model (Fig.  1 ). VIC is a macro-scale grid-based hydrological model that simulates water balance and surface energy balance (e.g., interception, evapotranspiration, surface and subsurface runoff, and river discharges) and anthropogenic water use. Here we took domestic, industrial, livestock and irrigation water withdrawals ( D j ) in 2010 derived from VIC by the study of Droppers et al. 33 . Future sectoral water withdrawals in 2050 were derived based on the changes in water withdrawals between 2010 and 2050 from the MARINA-Nutrients-Global-1.0 model developed in this study and water withdrawals in 2010 from VIC as derived above. Natural river discharge ( Q nat ) was based on the cumulative natural river discharge, i.e., discharge before water withdrawals, at the sub-basins outlets, simulated by VIC 47 . Following the approach of Pastor et al. 43 , we calculated the sub-basin specific EFR for the environment, withheld from human usage to keep ecosystems in a fair ecological condition. More details on the variables ( D j , Q nat , and EFR ) used to assess S quantity are available in Supplementary Table  S1 in Supplementary Information (SI) .

Quality-based indicator ( S quality ) was calculated from the nitrogen pollution perspective based on VIC, MAgPIE and MARINA-Nutrients (Fig.  1 ). Actual water availability ( Q act ) for S quality was based on the cumulative actual river discharge, i.e., discharge after water withdrawals within the sub-basins, at the sub-basins outlets, derived from MARINA-Nutrients that incorporated hydrology from VIC (see Supplementary Table  S1 in SI for details). For C max , we took 1 TDN mg/L as the threshold for sustaining the aquatic ecosystem from eutrophication, based on the study of De Vries et al. 38 , Yu et al. 39 . Here, L is the total dissolved N (TDN) load at the sub-basins outlets (kton/year). TDN is the sum of dissolved inorganic (DIN) and organic nitrogen (DON). DIN and DON loads at the sub-basin outlets are simulated separately by linking MAgPIE and MARINA-Nutrients (referred as \({{{{{{\rm{OT}}}}}}}_{F.y.j}\) in Eq. ( S3 ) for individual rivers or tributaries, and \({{{{{{\rm{OC}}}}}}}_{F.y.j}\) in Eq. ( S4 ) for main channel; see Supplementary Fig.  S1 for the definition of tributary and main channel).

MAgPIE is a global land-system modeling framework 64 , 80 that simulates long-term scenarios for the global land and food system. It is a recursively dynamic model that simulates how food, feed and material demand can be fulfilled under different possible future pathways. The model estimates the extent and distribution of agricultural land (cropland and pastureland), forest areas and other natural lands for the future until the year 2100. MAgPIE estimates nitrogen budgets on the level of 18 global world regions, which are downscaled to 0.5° grid level in the model post-processing and used as inputs for MARINA-Nutrients to simulate nitrogen pollution from diffuse sources. A detailed description of MAgPIE is available in Section MAgPIE in SI.

MARINA quantifies the annual river export of multiple pollutants (i.e. nitrogen (N), phosphorus, micro- and macro plastic, pathogens, and chemicals) to seas from point and diffuse sources for >10,000 subbasins worldwide 65 . In our study, we developed the MARINA-Nutrients-Global-1.0 model to assess river and coastal water pollution by total dissolved N (TDN) to seas from both diffuse and point sources in 2010 and 2050. TDN includes dissolved inorganic and organic N (DIN and DON). N from diffuse sources in agriculture and non-agriculture land is based on MAgPIE, while N from point sources is based on MARINA-Multi-Global-1.0 developed by Strokal et al. 17 to quantify nitrogen inputs to global rivers from sewage systems (Fig.  1 ). Details in model equations and model inputs for MARINA-Nutrients are available in Section MARINA in SI.

While developing this modeling framework, we also acknowledge that there are many other very useful models which could be adopted to assess clean-water scarcity. Many global hydrological models exist to assess water availability 47 , 50 , 81 . The land use and agriculture model IMAGE, for example, is another well-known model in the field for simulating land use and nitrogen budget 82 . Moreover, many water quality models exist to assess water pollution from various pollutants across temporal (e.g. daily, seasonal, annual) and spatial scales (e.g., catchment, sub-basin, basin). For example, SWAT 83 , WorldQual 82 , 84 , and RTM 85 and IMAGE-GNM 55 have been proven to be advanced models for assessing N pollution in rivers. In this study, we decided to use the MARINA-Nutrients-Global-1.0 model as the starting point for clean-water assessment, in combination with MAgPIE and VIC, because of the following strengths. First, the MARINA model allows quantifying water pollution by source (i.e., fertilizer, manure, sewage and etc) which helps to better understand the main causes of water pollution. Second, the sub-basin approach of MARINA provides an opportunity to analyze water scarcity in large river basins in more detail. Moreover, not all models are available to assess future trends in clean-water scarcity under the SSPs and RCPs, while the combination of MAgPIE, VIC and MARINA is capable for such future assessment.

Hotspot analysis

Based on the quantity- and quality-based indicators, we identified the global hotspots for clean-water scarcity. First, we determined the water scarcity levels for the sub-basins by low, moderate, and severe levels for both quantity and quality (Table  2 ). For quantity-based water scarcity (S quantity , Eq. ( 1 )), we used the generally accepted thresholds of >0.2 for moderate water scarcity and >0.4 for severe water scarcity. These levels were derived from existing studies 6 , 29 , 86 , 87 . For example, quantity-based water scarcity is considered severe when more than 40% of the available water – available river discharge after subtracting the amount for sustaining the environmental flow requirement - is used (S quantity  > 0.4) 29 . For quality-based water scarcity (S quality , Eq. ( 2 )), we used the thresholds of >0.45 for moderate water pollution and >1 for severe water pollution in view of avoiding eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems. The threshold of >0.45 means that TDN concentrations at the outlets of the sub-basins are higher than 0.45 mg N/L, indicating that the surface water bodies start to switch from the oligotrophic (clear water) to mesotrophic or eutrophic (turbid water) states, according to the trophic state index (TSI) 88 . The threshold of >1 means that nitrogen concentrations in the water bodies are higher than 1.0 mg N/L which can result in eutrophication in aquatic ecosystems 38 , 39 . Next, we identified the hotspots as the sub-basins where there is a severe quantity-based, quality-based, or both quantity- and quality-based water scarcity (see rows and columns with High in Table  2 ).

We assessed water scarcity for the current (2010) and future (2050) years. For 2050, three scenarios along the storylines of the Nitrogen futures in the Shared Socio-economic Pathways 79 and storylines of future urbanization and wastewater management 17 developed based on the Shared-economic pathways (SSPs) and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) were applied. These scenarios are: SSP1-RCP2p6, SSP2-RCP2p6, and SSP5-RCP8p5 (Supplementary Table  S9 in SI ). SSP1-RCP2p6 assumes a future focusing on sustainable socio-economic development, high-ambition N policies and an ambitious diet shift to a low meat diet, improved sewage connection and treatment, sustainable water withdrawal, combined with strong climate mitigation and its impacts on hydrology. SSP2-RCP2p6 assumes a socio-economic development following the historical trends, moderate-ambition N policies and medium meat & dairy diet, not much-improved sewage connection and treatment, not much-changes in water withdrawal, combined with strong climate mitigation and its impacts on hydrology. SSP5-RCP8p5 assumes an urbanized future with fossil-fuel-driven socio-economic development, low-ambition N policies and meat & dairy-rich diet, improved sewage connection but limited improvements in sewage treatment, high water withdrawal, combine with low climate mitigation and its impacts on hydrology. The scenario assumptions for sewage connection and treatment are available in Supplementary Table  S10 in SI and in Strokal et al. 17 , which are implemented in MARINA-Nutrients-Global-1.0 for modeling nutrient pollution in rivers from point sources. The scenario assumptions for land use and agriculture are described in further detail in Supplementary Table  S11 in SI , which is implemented in the MAgPIE model to produce model inputs for MARINA-Nutirents-Global-1.0 for modeling nutrient pollution in rivers from diffuse sources.

Data availability

All data of the clean-water scarcity assessment newly generated and analyzed in this study are publicly available in the Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS Easy) repository https://doi.org/10.17026/PT/3ICWZM .

Code availability

All equations for the MARINA model are provided in the Supplementary information files of the following open access publication: Wang, M., Kroeze, C., Strokal, M., van Vliet, M.T.H. & Ma, L. Global change can make coastal eutrophication control in China more difficult. Earth’s Future 8, e2019EF001280, https://doi.org/10.1029/2019ef001280 (2020).

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support of the KNAW-MOST project: Sustainable Resource Management for Adequate and Safe Food Provision (SURE+) (PSA-SA-E-01, supporting M.W.), the Dutch Talent Program Veni-NWO project (0.16.Veni.198.001, supporting M.S.). We acknowledge the support of Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-Use, and Energy (FABLE) Consortium (FABLE 2.0, Grant 94120, supporting F.B.), European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program Grants (776479 COACCH and 821010 CASCADES, supporting B.L.B.) and German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) Grant (01LS2105A, ABCDR, supporting B.L.B.). We also acknowledge the European Union (ERC Starting Grant, B-WEX, Project 101039426, supporting MTHvV) and Netherlands Scientific Organisation (NWO) VIDI grant (VI.Vidi.193.019, supporting MTHvV).

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Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Leibniz Association, Telegrafenberg A56, 14412, Potsdam, Germany

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M.W. and R.R. designed the research. M.W., B.L.B., F.B., R.R., M.P.B., M.B. and A.P. performed the modeling assessment of clean water scarcity, which were reviewed and commented on by B.D., M.T.H.v.V. and M.S. M.W. and M.T.H.v.V. performed the quantification of environmental flow requirements. M.W. drafted the first version of the manuscript. All co-authors contributed to the interpretation of the results, critical revision of the manuscript, and approval of the final version of the manuscript.

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Wang, M., Bodirsky, B.L., Rijneveld, R. et al. A triple increase in global river basins with water scarcity due to future pollution. Nat Commun 15 , 880 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-44947-3

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