Access to Data is Vital in the Global Water Crisis

Open data projects are trying to raise awareness of poor water quality across the globe, increasing access to valuable information. 

In a world where only 59% of the population have access to clean water, finding out which bodies of water are unsanitary is vital for those without access to filtration or treated water.

In sub-Saharan Africa, the situation is worse – only 16% of the population have access to a personal water source like a tap, or a pump in a neighbour’s yard.

Significantly, obtaining clean water isn’t a problem solely confined to less economically developed countries. 

Raising awareness of poor water quality can be challenging, but more organisations are stepping up to the task.

Stephen Abbott Pugh, portfolio manager at Open Knowledge International explains how South Africa’s Department for Water is looking for new ways to collect information about water quality and availability during one of the worst droughts in history. 

The government is keen to learn how it can deal with crises like drought, or poor sanitation.

The Department for Water held hackathons across the country which saw 15 hack teams bid to share their solutions to the water crisis by coding apps and debating. The goal according to a statement on their website is “to make data available to citizens for purposes of scrutiny and interrogation and to figure out how the state can best use data provided by citizens.”

Abbott Pugh describes how the use of open data is spreading across Africa, and how it can help combat water disease and sanitation issues. “In Rwanda, organisations are trying to connect a million farmers to data in some way. We need to work out what information we need for this to work and how we can trigger the process. Already open data networks exist where farmers receive messages if there’s a warning they need to be aware of, for example a weather situation.”

One organisation that is succeeding at encouraging disparate communities and individuals to share data is mWater. This not-for-profit tech startup has been making a huge impact on communities since 2011 with its open data initiatives. With 8,000 users in 73 countries, mWater has developed a mobile phone app that allows users to analyse water quality and share this information on their global, open-source water monitoring database.

Studies conducted by the startup found water users tend to choose from an average of three water sources on any given day. They decide where to fetch water based on how it tastes, when it flows best, and whether their friends will be there. mWater wants to make whether it’s contaminated a factor that weighs on their choice.

Organisations like WaterAid are using mWater to monitor a water source once it has been created, but other NGOs like the Ugandan Water Project are using the app to conduct a more democratic pre-site assessment. Rather than building a new well somewhere because an important politician lives there, they look at evidence like where water is needed and what is already available to decide where is most deserving.

The UN predicts that half the world’s population will live in a water-stressed area by 2030, while EWG research has highlighted how poor water quality is not confined to the developing world.

Open data can be used to give residents a voice, and enable them to choose whether to buy bottled, how to filter their water, or where to lead their cattle to drink. In short, as the global population grows and the world battles with water crisis, we need to open up our data. 

Source: The Guardian

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Taxonomy

• Crisis
• Data Management
• Water
• Data