{"id":271682,"date":"2019-09-24T06:56:05","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T13:56:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=271682"},"modified":"2024-03-25T15:48:18","modified_gmt":"2024-03-25T22:48:18","slug":"economic-water-resource-scarcity","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/blog\/economic-water-resource-scarcity","title":{"rendered":"Assessing Economic Water Scarcity Needs with GIS and AI"},"author":5642,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","castos_file_data":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1041],"tags":[165542,287902,384852,279132],"industry":[],"esri-blog-category":[478372],"esri_blog_department":[478202],"class_list":["post-271682","blog","type-blog","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collaboration","tag-data-sharing","tag-development","tag-economic-scarcity","tag-water","esri-blog-category-water","esri_blog_department-infrastructure"],"acf":{"video_source":"","video_start":"","video_stop":"","short_description":"Global Water Challenge created apps to help governments and NGOs prioritize water projects based on the number of people impacted.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"Key Takeaways\r\n<ul>\r\n \t<li>The Global Water Challenge shares data and analysis to identify needs and record progress.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Data exchange fuels applications showing where water projects will have the greatest impact.<\/li>\r\n \t<li>Study reveals nonprofit organization can reach 25% more people with analytics<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Water scarcity is reaching a new level of urgency. Climate change has created patterns of extreme deluge and drought, exacerbating already fragile conditions. One group, Global Water Challenge, is using data-driven analysis to bring relief in the form of water supply and infrastructure.\r\n\r\nFounded in 2006, the Global Water Challenge is a coalition of leading organizations committed to achieving universal access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and hygiene. So far, through public-private partnerships, the group has reached more than 1 million people with clean water access. But, there\u2019s much more work to do.\r\n\r\nMany cities now plan for \u201cDay Zero\u201d when no water is left in reservoirs. For some, this is already a reality. In 2018, Cape Town, South Africa narrowly avoided water shut-off. In June of this year, water taps ran dry in Chennai, India, severely impacting the city\u2019s 10.6 million residents.\r\n\r\n\u201cResource scarcity hit both Cape Town and Chennai\u2014it\u2019s not as much about money, technology, or infrastructure\u2014there just isn\u2019t enough water,\u201d said Brian Banks, director of strategic initiatives for the Global Water Challenge. \u201cWhen we talk about water resources, there\u2019s both economic scarcity and resource scarcity,\u201d\r\n\r\nIn some regions where water is available, the infrastructure to store and deliver it is aging or lacking. Banks gives the example of a rural village in Malawi where there is \u201cplenty of water below ground, but people don\u2019t have the resources to extract it.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":271772,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<strong>Water as an Economic Engine<\/strong>\r\n\r\nWith a focus on economic scarcity, the Global Water Challenge helps millions of rural inhabitants around the world who don\u2019t have access to clean drinking water or adequate sanitation.\r\n\r\n\u201cPeople have to walk long distances to fetch water or they use dirty surface water and get sick,\u201d Banks said. \u201cIn a lot of cases, they pass broken pumps or infrastructure on that long walk\u2014remnants of past projects that weren\u2019t maintained.\u201d\r\n\r\nIt is often children who are sent to get water and miss school to do so. Or adults, mostly women, make the journey, losing productive daytime hours.\r\n\r\n\u201cWater access leads to economic opportunity, education, gender equity, health, and so much more,\u201d Banks said.\r\n\r\nThe United Nations defines basic water access as having an improved source of water within a 30-minute collection time. Recently, the organization <a href=\"https:\/\/sustainabledevelopment.un.org\/sdg6\">elevated water to its Sustainable Development Goals<\/a>. Succinctly stated, the goal is to \u201censure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":271782,"image_position":"left","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<strong>Creating Shared Understanding<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe lack of water, sanitation, and hygiene is one of the greatest obstacles to poverty alleviation and economic growth in many countries.\r\n\r\nSeveral nonprofits, governments, and international aid organizations that work to deliver water to people in need are facing a fundamental challenge. They need to know which locations have successful projects \u2014what has worked and continues working\u2014and where new investments in water infrastructure will have the greatest impact.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe launched the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.waterpointdata.org\/\">Water Point Data Exchange<\/a> (WPDx) five years ago with the idea that we could do so much more if we had a shared understanding about water projects,\u201d Banks said. \u201cWe have worked to create a global database of rural water services and now we\u2019re using a geographic information system [GIS] software to pull insights out of the data to put it in the hands of decision makers.\u201d\r\n\r\nThrough collaboration with many partners, WPDx now contains 500,000 water point records from 50 countries. Global Water Challenge has packaged WPDx data with analytical tools to aid decision making. One tool looks at broken water points, helping governments prioritize which to fix by seeing how many people would be served. Another focuses on new construction, singling out places to build a new water point that would reach the most people. Another tool helps government leaders identify underserved populations by showing how many people within a given district do or do not have access to water within a kilometer of their home.\r\n\r\n\u201cAccording to our research, 25% of water points break within the first four years,\u201d Banks said. \u201cThere\u2019s a massive failure rate and there\u2019s no way that governments can keep up with all of them.\u201d\r\n\r\nGlobal Water Challenge is working with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/artificial-intelligence\/overview\">artificial intelligence<\/a> company Data Robot to combine GIS with machine learning to predict water point failure before it happens.\r\n\r\n\u201cPredicting failure will allow governments and their partners to do preventive maintenance, which is obviously more efficient as an investment than having to build new infrastructure or repair something that\u2019s already broken,\u201d Banks said.\r\n\r\nThe team recently completed a study to assess the value of GIS in terms of costs and people served. They created realistic investment strategies for 12 districts across seven different countries in sub-Saharan Africa and found they can reach 25% more people with the same budget using GIS."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":271792,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<strong>Water Provides Sustainability<\/strong>\r\n\r\nGlobal Water Challenge's mission to provide an evidence-based approach to helping rural communities obtain and sustain basic water access has attracted strong corporate backing.\r\n\r\n\u201cSince 2009, the Coca-Cola Foundation has focused on water issues because it has made a commitment to seeing communities succeed, and water is the primary ingredient of its products,\u201d Banks said. \u201cThrough their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.coca-colacompany.com\/stories\/rain-the-replenish-africa-initiative\">Replenish Africa Initiative<\/a>, they\u2019ve worked in more than two dozen countries across Africa, delivering clean, sustainable water access to more than 3 million people.\u201d\r\n\r\nThrough the support of Coca-Cola, Global Water Challenge is using its GIS analysis in Sierra Leone with the Ministry of Water Resources to conduct annual planning.\r\n\r\n\u201cWe piloted the machine learning tool with two district planning officers and now all the tools are being rolled out to other districts,\u201d Banks said. \u201cThe Ministry of Finance has expressed an interest in knowing where all the water needs are across the entire country in order to recommend where non-governmental organization partners could do impactful work.\u201d\r\n\r\nThrough the WPDx data exchange, Global Water Challenge has helped the whole community of water-focused nonprofits take a data-driven approach to addressing the need for clean water and sanitation.\r\n\r\n\u201cWater scarcity is growing and will continue to grow in the future, with many water points drying up,\u201d Banks said. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be increasing demand and competition, with the same amount of resource and the need to get more work done. That\u2019s where the need to track progress and increase efficiency really comes in, using data to make decisions.\u201d\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\nLearn more about how <a href=\"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/en-us\/arcgis\/products\/arcgis-open-data\">open data helps all organizations<\/a> communicate effectively, meet mandated transparency requirements, enable greater insights, and fosters engagement and collaboration."}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Assessing Economic Water Scarcity Needs with GIS and AI<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Global Water Challenge created the Water Point Data Exchange to gain a shared perspective on the status of past and current projects.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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