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United Nations/Ghana/PSIPW - 5th International conference on the use of space technology for water resources management

From 10 to 13 May 2022, the United Nations Officer for Outer Space Affairs organized the 5th International conference on the use of space technology for water resources management. The conference was hosted in a hybrid format in Accra, Ghana, by the University of Energy and Natural Resources, Sunyani on behalf of the Government of Ghana. The event was attended by several senior government representatives of the host country including Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, Vice President of the Republic of Ghana, the Honorary Minister of Education Dr.

Interview with Benjamin Wullobayi Dekongmen

Could you describe how your professional and/or personal experience relate to water? Where does your interest in water resources management come from? What influenced your decision to focus your work on the use of space technology for water management? 

My upbringing on a farm set out the foundation for my interest in water resources, as I used to collect water for domestic and agricultural purposes from the streams.

Interview with Benjamin Wullobayi Dekongmen

Could you describe how your professional and/or personal experience relate to water? Where does your interest in water resources management come from? What influenced your decision to focus your work on the use of space technology for water management? 

My upbringing on a farm set out the foundation for my interest in water resources, as I used to collect water for domestic and agricultural purposes from the streams.

Register for the United Nations/Ghana/PSIPW - 5th International conference on the use of space technology for water resources management

The United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) and the Government of Ghana are jointly organizing a Conference with the support of the Prince Sultan Bin Abdulaziz International Prize for Water (PSIPW) to promote the use of space technology in water management to the benefit of developing countries.

The Conference will be held in Accra, Ghana, from 10- 13 May 2022, hosted by the University of Energy and Natural Resources on behalf of the Government of Ghana.

Capacity Building and Training Material

UN SPIDER Recommended Practice: Use of Digital Elevation Data for Storm Surge Coastal Flood Modelling

Overview:

Storm surges and tidal waves are global phenomena that considerably affect human populations in coastal and island regions. According to the Guide to Storm Surge Forecasting published by the World Meteorological Organization in 2011, storm surges can be defined as “oscillations of the water level in a coastal or inland body of water in the time range of a few minutes to a few days, resulting from forcing from atmospheric weather systems. According to this definition, the so-called wind waves, which have durations on the order of several seconds, are excluded”.

Map

Click on any of the highlighted countries to retrieve further information.

Stakeholder

Community water and Sanitation Agency

The Organisation is a Government agency in charge of providing portable drinking water and water related sanitation services to rural communities. The agency is incharge of achieving WASH related SDGs by 2030 at the remote communities in Ghana.

International Water Management Institute

IWMI is a research-for-development (R4D) organization, with offices in 13 countries and a global network of scientists operating in more than 30 countries. For over three decades, our research results have led to changes in water management that have contributed to social and economic development. IWMI’s Vision reflected in its Strategy 2019-2023, is ‘a water-secure world’.

Global Water Partnership

The Global Water Partnership (GWP) is a global action network with over 3,000 Partner organisations in 179 countries. The network has 69 accredited Country Water Partnerships and 13 Regional Water Partnerships.

The network is open to all organisations involved in water resources management: developed and developing country government institutions, agencies of the United Nations, bi- and multi-lateral development banks, professional associations, research institutions, non-governmental organisations, and the private sector.

Person

Photo of Mr. Kabo Bah

Amos Kabo Bah

Dean, International Relations Office University of Energy and Natural Resources

Dr. Amos T. Kabo-Bah is a distinguished expert in climate change, energy, and hydrology. With a Ph.D. from Hohai University, China, he has built an impressive career in research, teaching, and consulting. His experience includes a postdoctoral position at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and his current role as Dean for International Relations at the University of Energy and Natural Resources, Ghana. Dr.

Photo of Eric Mortey

Eric Mensah Mortey

Assistant Research Fellow University of Energy and Natural Resources

Eric is an enthusiastic hydroclimatologist and energy scientist with a strong research focus in spatial modeling, atmospheric-hydrological modeling, climate change, and hydropower sustainability assessment. He has strong expertise in GIS and Remote Sensing and hydrological modeling with Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP), and the fully coupled Atmospheric-Hydrological Water Research and Forecasting Model (WRF-Hydro).

Space-based Solution

Addressed challenge(s)

Droughts and Floods over the same region

Small-holder farmers in northern Madagascar are disproportionately impacted by drought

Samburu tribe lacks access to safe drinking water - Dry spells due to water scarcity

Collaborating actors (stakeholders, professionals, young professionals or Indigenous voices)
Suggested solution

Pakistan and other regions facing alternation of droughts and floods (as described in this challenge) are usually arid and semi-arid that are mainly dependent on rain-fed agriculture and are facing water scarcity issues, rainwater harvesting is critically important for these areas.

Outline steps for solution

For determining optimum sites for rainwater harvesting and the potential of rainwater harvesting structures, data on land cover/land use, elevation and topography, geo-chemical formation of soils, stream runoff, and various hydro-meteorological variables are required. High-quality data on land cover/land use, elevation, stream identification, water potential of individual watersheds, and slope with fine spatial resolution can be derived from space-based satellite imagery. Although stream runoff and hydro-meteorological variable statistics with sufficient accuracy can only be obtained through ground-based in-situ sensors, these measurements also need space-based location services to make them input in the spatial analysis along with the satellite-derived products.

In many cases, however, satellite remote sensing represents a critical source of information, especially in regions with limited sensor networks and where information on hydrologic conditions is inaccessible. Remote sensing and geographical information technologies can play a compelling role in addressing major challenges since spatial patterns of aridity, climatic uncertainty or rapid climatic variability are not vividly understood or considered by local farmers or municipal authorities while planning for agriculture or domestic water use. Robust modeling is possible when space technologies are applied to identify suitable locations and harvesting potentials for ponds and pans, check dams, terracing, percolation tanks, and Nala-bunds; with a very small amount of time, effort, and overhead assessment cost.

1. Identify satellite data sources for

  1. Elevation/ Digital Elevation Model (DEM)  
  2. Soil data  
  3. Meteorological data  
  4. Sentinel satellite data: Slope, elevation, drainage density, annual rainfall, NDWI, NDVI, LULC, curve number  
  5. Landcover/land-use (LULC) 
  6. Stream identification 
  7. Slope (with fine spatial resolution)  
  8. Water potential of individual watersheds (kPA) 

All these datasets are available as open-source datasets, which are used to derive parameters such as slope elevation, drainage density, annual rainfall, land use/land cover, curve number, and distance from streams. Further, a model that suggests the suitability of sites for rainwater harvesting will be developed.  

2. Modeling

The model includes four fundamental parameters that are readily accessible globally (DEM, soil, rainfall and satellite data, Fig.1). It addresses the simplicity of running the model but highlights the longer process involved in calculating drainage density and suggests its development as an open-source tool. Similarly, it mentions the complexity of the SCS-CN method and proposes its development as a single-click tool. The need for developing reclassification tools for influencing factors in open-source GIS software is also emphasized. The presentation contrasts the affordability and accessibility of ArcGIS with open-source alternatives like QGIS for tasks such as slope calculation. It acknowledges the availability of tools for slope calculation but emphasizes the lack of readily available tools for drainage density, indicating a gap in open-source resources. 

Model
Figure 1: A draft model for rainwater harvesting

 

Rainwater harvesting suitability model development  

To develop the model the datasets are run in ArcGIS. Slope, elevation profile, NDVI, NDWI, and distance from stream datasets are run by a single step. However, drainage density, annual rainfall, curve number, and the LULC data need to be run by various complicated steps.  

  1. Drainage density 

After calculating the slope and elevation data the drainage density needs to be developed. To calculate this there is a multi-step process (10 steps) involved. This calculation includes stream generation, stream links, grid indexing, clipping, the intersection between stream links and clipped grid index, dissolution, attribute assignment, conversion of polygon features into points features, and finally interpolation. This currently requires expertise to navigate.  

  1. Annual rainfall  

NetCDF format data for annual rainfall needs to be converted into geographical raster layers for implementation in a geographical scenario. This calculation is done in six steps, which include the conversion of NetCDF to raster, the exportation of raster to the destination folder, the calculation of annual rainfall of a certain year, the calculation of cell statistics to sum all band values and interpolation of data. 

  1. Curve Number (CN) 

The curve number (CN) for rainwater harvesting has three major steps involved. Firstly, the land use/land cover data (LULC) needs to be prepared, which involves transforming categorical data into numerical scores. Secondly, the soil data with LULC data needs to be merged, highlighting the necessity of transforming soil nomenclature into a usable format and assigning scores based on research papers. Lastly, the classification of reclassified raster data into polygons can be simplified and optimized. 

  1. Merging soil and LULC data  

Further, merging soil and land use/land cover data needs to automatically generate tables that assign scores based on specific combinations of soil types and land use categories.  Merging soil and LULC data undergoes the process of reclassification and weight assignment, highlighting the simplicity of linear equations in ArcGIS. This proposes the integration of pairwise comparison methods for assigning weights. Additionally, online tools for pairwise comparison and analytical hierarchy process (AHP) are available online, which can streamline the weight assignment process. Finally, after the weights for each layer have been assigned and all raster layers have been reclassified, the site suitability analysis can be done. This analysis suggests the optimum sites where rainwater can be harvested (Fig.2). 

Model output
Figure 2: Output of the model indicating the suitability of sites for rainwater harvesting.

3. Future steps

There are 55 individual tools in this model slated for separate development, to consolidate these into one tool capable of integrating all five steps. This consolidation represents the primary objective to facilitate the model's transition to open-source status, enabling users to access the comprehensive solution through a single menu interface. The following processes need a single-click tool to simplify the process for users without specialized knowledge.  

  • Drainage density: This 10-step process needs to be streamlined into a single tool for ease of use, particularly in open-source software like QGIS.  
  • Annual rainfall: A separate open-source tool needs to be developed for the conversion process of annual rainfall data into a geographical raster, outlining steps such as raster calculation expressions to combine multiple years of data into a single value. 
  • Curve number: Automation of the transformation process of LULC data into numerical score is needed. 
  • Merge of soil data and LULC data: A dedicated tool for CN grid calculation in open-source software like QGIS is needed.  
Relevant publications
Related space-based solutions
Keywords (for the solution)
Climate Zone (addressed by the solution)
Habitat (addressed by the solution)
Region/Country (the solution was designed for, if any)
Relevant SDGs