Water Savings Specialized Technical Support

Mercy Corps

About The Position

Mercy Corps seeks a consultant to provide specialized technical support for the development of the Water Savings Approach, including its core framework, methodology, tools, and guidance. This Scope of Work outlines the consultant's responsibilities and expected contributions. The purpose of this consultancy is to provide specialized technical support for the development of Mercy Corps’ Water Savings Approach. Drawing on Mercy Corps’ review of external evidence and existing approaches, as well as its assessment of internal experience, technical capacities, and operational feasibility, the consultant will help develop the framework, methodology, tools, and guidance needed to support consistent and credible water-savings programming across different contexts. This includes helping Mercy Corps identify and design suitable initiatives, measure and monitor water savings, verify results, and communicate them clearly to relevant stakeholders. The consultancy will also help ensure that the approach is technically rigorous, practical for field use, and scalable.

Requirements

Advanced degree (Master’s/PhD) in hydrology, water resources, environmental engineering, or related field.
At least 10–15+ years of professional experience in water accounting; hydrological and hydraulic analyses; agricultural and urban water systems; watershed management; and environmental and water resource modeling.
Experience working across multiple geographies and sectors in water management.
Strong analytical and systems-thinking.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills

Nice To Haves

Desirable familiarity with corporate water stewardship standards (e.g., volumetric accounting, replenishment)

Responsibilities

Support the development of the Mercy Corps’ Water Savings Approach, ensuring technical rigor, internal coherence, and alignment with scientific standards and operational realities.
Lead the design and integration of several Water Savings tools, to support the technical robustness of the Mercy Corps’ Water Savings Approach.
Ensure accurate monitoring for Water Savings programs, and the generation and incorporation of evidence into the Mercy Corps’ Water Savings Approach.
Support the internal capacity building and the future landscape analysis for Mercy Corps.
Develop the Mercy Corps Water Savings Framework, defining the conceptual and technical foundation for water savings across the organization. The framework should establish standardized terminology, definitions, units of measurement, system boundaries, typology of water-saving modalities, minimum evidence and data requirements, ensuring consistency and comparability across projects and geographies.
Facilitate technical working sessions with relevant internal teams to validate, refine, and align the framework components.
Propose and co-design project selection criteria with key regional and country teams at Mercy Corps.
Build a simple and practical decision support tool.
Develop a list of potential initiatives, based on Mercy Corps priorities, capacities and potential reach, and using the decision support tool.
Develop a risk management guide, including key risks and possible mitigation measures.
Develop the standardized core methodology for estimating the volumetric water saving targets in the project design phase, including (but is not limited to) baseline logic, “no-project” and “project” scenarios, boundaries and uncertainties, initial data required, and estimation methods and models, tailored to specific water-saving modalities.
Develop the standardized core methodology for quantifying and verifying the actual volumetric water savings expected within the project (implementation & completion phases), including (but not limited to) boundaries and uncertainties, adjustments, data required, and calculation models and methods calibration, tailored to specific water-savings modalities.
Develop the standardized methodology for monitoring continued water savings after project closure, including (but not limited to) monitoring cycles, measurements, and data collection protocols, change assessment criteria, recalibration considerations, and reporting protocols.
Create calculation models and methods templates, data, and documentation requirements; to be easily used by the Mercy Corps’ teams.
Develop a standardized but adaptable guidance package for the design, implementation, monitoring, reporting, and learning of water-saving projects across Mercy Corps contexts.
Consolidate the assignment's main outputs into a final Water Savings Approach document for Mercy Corps.
Support the training of Mercy Corps Teams.
Support the handover of the water savings approach and future opportunities.