How Location Data is Helping Solve Water Insecurity
Nonprofits and humanitarian relief agencies are using location data to tackle some of the most challenging problems in the world today: from housing discrimination, to climate change, to disease prevention.
Water insecurity is one of the biggest challenges being addressed today by nonprofits, journalists, and technology companies, both at home and abroad.
Let’s take a look at how location intelligence helps transform location data into possible solutions for water insecurity problems.
How can nonprofits find data-driven solutions when location data on water resources are not readily accessible? The Regional Food Security Analysis Network RFSAN) and cMapIT confronted this problem while trying to improve water access in Syria and Nigeria respectively. But let’s see how both organizations employed Location Intelligence to surmount this obstacle.
The Regional Food Security Analysis Network (RFSAN) is a nonprofit based in Amman, Jordan using open data provided from several different humanitarian groups including iMMAP and USAID Food for Peace. RFSAN leverages these various data sources while locating solutions to:
As Syria’s civil war enters its sixth year, however, it is nearly impossible safely assess current conditions on the ground.
For its Water Resources map, RFSAN’s team of data analysts imported available datasets on both Syrian infrastructure and water resources gained from satellite imagery. In building this interactive map identifying the amount and location current water resources, RFSAN is helping raise situational awareness of the country’s ongoing humanitarian crisis while providing a much needed data resource for future relief work.
In response to a World Bank risk assessment on Nigerian water insecurity, cMapIT, a Grants for Good program recipient, attempted to provide transparency on water supply and consumption levels in Nigeria. Problematically, neither a technological infrastructure nor reliable data on water resources existed.
cMapIT, undaunted, enlisted help from both Nigerian citizens and water point operators first to collect water data that would allow the organization to build WaterDataNG. As a result, crowdsourced data visualizations showing water supply and consumption across Nigeria were made available, which also allowed cMapIT to lay the foundation for open data portal for Nigeria.
In response to a World Bank risk assessment on Nigerian water insecurity, cMapIT, a Grants for Good program recipient, attempted to provide transparency on water supply and consumption levels in Nigeria.
