NVWS-AWG-001 — Atmospheric water generation source displacement

DRAFT FOR CONSULTATION. NVWS v0.1 (October 2026). This is a proposed Nexus Water DAO LLC standard. It is not approved, adopted or independently assured. The methods have not been approved by an independent technical council. No Verified Water Credits (VWC) have been issued, and none are offered for sale. References to WRI, AWS, Gold Standard, ISO, EPA, FTC, SEC, CFTC or any other organization are not endorsements. Comments: josh@nexuswater.xyz

Version 0.1 · 2026-10-03 · Nexus Water DAO LLC

Status: proposed Nexus policy / technical draft. Not an approved or independently assured credit standard.

Required methodology specification

Field	Proposed requirement
1. Methodology ID	NVWS-AWG-001
2. Version	0.1-draft; proposed, not approved
3. Effective date	None for live issuance; draft baseline 2026-10-03
4. Eligible activities	AWG used by a facility/community to replace eligible conventional potable or nonpotable supply. New access without displaced demand is recorded separately as ACCESS and does not automatically earn volumetric displacement units.
5. Geographic applicability	Pilot-specific only after local permit, source-catchment and technical applicability review; no blanket global approval.
6. Environmental objective	VWC-SUPPLY; source_displacement, with the actual displaced source catchment identified
7. Project boundary	Condensate collection, treatment, sanitation, rejected/wasted water, storage, dispensing/use, power and the actual displaced supply chain.
8. Water source	Trace delivered/bottled water to its physical origin where possible; project island/location is not proof the displaced source is in the same catchment. For municipal displacement document actual source mix and demand.
9. Baseline rules	Document normalized pre-project purchases/withdrawals and equivalent useful service. Separate demand growth, stockpiling, shortages, visitors and changes in potable quality. A purchase reduction alone may reflect inventory drawdown; reconcile storage.
10. Additionality rules	Apply the NVWS additionality policy (draft, publication pending); environmental counterfactual, regulatory and temporal tests required; method/project annex specifies practice and finance tests with evidence and rationale.
11. Monitoring	Gross condensate, treatment/sanitation/rejection losses, net delivered/used volume, stock balance, conventional purchases/withdrawals, potable quality, energy consumed/source, humidity/temperature, uptime and maintenance.
12. Devices	Calibrated, appropriately sized/installed meters with serial, unit, accuracy specification, commissioning and calibration history. Approved engineering models where the project annex permits; no brand endorsement implied.
13. Equations	N = max(0, gross condensate − treatment loss − sanitation loss − other waste). Used volume reconciles N with storage changes. G = min(N_used, D_eligible). E = max(0, G − U − L) × A. Issue floor(E) whole VWC-SUPPLY.
14. Uncertainty	Project annex defines uncertainty budget, missing-data rule, correlation/error propagation and chosen conservative deduction. No default confidence factor from evidence tier. Technical reviewer must approve parameters before real issuance.
15. Leakage / adverse effects	Power and lifecycle effects are separately disclosed, including increases. Solar-supported is not zero-carbon; document renewable fraction, time boundary, grid use and equipment assumptions. Retain lab analytes, standard, jurisdiction, sampling dates and corrective actions; do not infer potable safety from appearance or device marketing.
16. Allocation	Explicit rights and pool-level allocation ≤100%; apply only once after conservative physical quantity. Coordinate utility and sponsor shares.
17. Data quality	Immutable originals, aligned periods, explicit units/read types, calibrated instruments, anomaly resolution and source reconciliation; no unresolved material gaps.
18. Verification	Independent qualified verifier and separate registry review; bind decision to exact baseline, calculation and evidence versions.
19. Issuance schedule	Ex-post only, on complete approved monitoring intervals. One annual vintage is preferred where seasonal comparability requires it; no automatic annualization from a short sample.
20. Crediting period	Project-specific, with annual eligibility/maintenance review. No guarantee of future issuance. Material baseline/operating change triggers revalidation.
21. Reversal/correction	Later equipment failure stops future crediting; it does not automatically negate a valid past measured reduction. If prior data or hydrological conclusions were wrong, investigate, cancel active units and invalidate retired claims with append-only history. Stored or time-dependent benefit annexes must define actual reversal obligations.
22. Reporting	Publish redacted PDD, method/version, boundary, metric, vintage, calculation, uncertainty, allocation, verifier opinion, serial batch and separately disclosed co-benefits.
23. Claim language	Verified eligible displacement of the specified conventional source by AWG-supplied water; not watershed replenishment or a carbon offset.
24. Exclusions	Production with no demonstrated displacement, untested potable claims, nameplate estimates, unmet new demand mislabeled replenishment, unsupported net-positive environmental benefit, duplicated bottled-water/trucking claims.
25. Double counting	Use the same physical outcome pool across overlapping methods; detect overlapping dates, evidence/meters and external claims. Apply the NVWS double-counting policy (draft, publication pending).
26. Update history	2026-10-03: first technical draft based on user brief; no technical council approval, field validation or public consultation completed.

Worked example

HYPOTHETICAL EXAMPLE: 1,400 net usable liters/day and 1,250 liters/day displaced over 365 measured days → gross ceiling 456.25 m³, at most 456 whole units before further deductions. Missing days cannot be multiplied to a full year without an approved estimator. The 0.25 m³ residual remains unissued.

Approval blockers

Live issuance is disabled until a competent reviewer approves the specific baseline, boundary, uncertainty treatment, data-completeness criteria, measurement specifications, rights, safeguards and legal applicability. Publish technical consultation and council disposition. Examples and software calculations are not field validation. The REPLENISH methodology additionally requires an executable, independently reviewed site-specific hydrological annex.

Technical reference use

Use WRI VWBA 2.0 and applicable source-specific engineering as accounting references, not as certification of this formula. Consider AWS site/catchment context, EPA WaterSense specifications for applicable SAVE products, WQBA for quality effects and GHG Protocol for separately quantified carbon co-benefits. See the Nexus reference library (publication pending).