European scientists are finding that Earth observation satellites not only can lead policymakers to water but can also make them think.

Four years after the European Space Agency‘s (ESA) Committee on Earth Observation Satellites launched a Technology Informatics Guiding Educational Reform (TIGER) Initiative to help alleviate Africa’s water woes, an African official expressed optimism that technology will win out even if human error is still hindering hydrology.

At a Nov. 20-24 workshop in Cape Town, South Africa, to discuss ways of using space technology to manage Africa’s water resources, Lindiwe Hendricks, the Republic of South Africa‘s Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Minister, told the audience that dysfunctional information systems or systems in disrepair still limit informed decision making, though progress was being made. She added that appropriate skills and reliable information are needed to support decisions made on water resources.

Hendricks noted that the use of technology for complex research, including exploring the possibilities of life on another other planet, is available even while "on our own planet there is still so much suffering." Yet "it is this very technology that can provide some of the solutions to the water challenges that face us," she said.

The TIGER Initiative was launched during the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, and in response to water needs identified for an African continent where the hydrological network is one of the world’s least developed. The program focuses on the use of space technology as a means to assist African countries overcome water-related problems and mitigate a general water-information gap.

Since then, the program has involved more than 150 African organizations investigating various stages of the water cycle across the continent. Funded by 6 million euros ($8 million), the ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), have backed projects in more than 20 countries.

The TIGER Initiative’s research stage encourages water authorities in Africa to undertake study initiatives in the field of water and resource management and supports researchers with Earth observation data, training and tools. Earth observation data has been used in Morocco to detect a previously unknown fault; in Cameroon to monitor land use dynamics; and in Botswana to feed political decisions about shared water use within the Okavango Delta.

Among the 15 projects under the TIGER Initiative’s pre-operational stage are wetland monitoring, water resources mapping, water quality estimate, soil moisture charting, flood plains monitoring, epidemiology and groundwater resources management.

The operational stage is aimed at transferring the leadership of the projects to African water authorities.

One ongoing project is aimed at implementing a system for monitoring the water quality of Egypt’s Lake Manzalah. An essential freshwater source in the region, the lake has been strained over recent years owing to increased demand and competition from domestic, industrial and agricultural users.

Akram Mohamed El Ganzori of Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation said "the value of [Earth observation]-derived information increases as it is used in integrated water-resources management to improve decision-making. The transfer of expertise and the building of local capacity is a real achievement."

Addressing one of the most threatened ecosystems on Earth, Muhammad Sani Adamu of the Lake Chad Basin Commission and Leon Schouten of Vexcel presented the GlobWetland project, an ESA-led initiative using satellite imagery to provide detailed wide-area views of individual wetlands and aid conservation efforts.

The African Development Bank‘s Woudeneh Tefera described GlobWetland as "a tremendous leapfrog from the traditional data collection and information-management systems and would enormously facilitate availability of quality data for water resources development, management and monitoring of the resources… National water-resources management authorities and transboundary river basin origination could benefit tremendously from this initiative, provided that the required scientific and technical skills are developed within the continent."

— J.J. McCoy