Co-creating earth observation use cases for informed water management decisions in African River Basins

Across five African countries, practical use cases supported by the Digital Innovations for Water-Secure Africa (DIWASA) initiative demonstrate how Earth observation (EO) based digital tools can address diverse water management challenges in data-scarce contexts. The International Water Management Institute (IWMI), through DIWASA, facilitated structured multi-stakeholder dialogues with use case owners, including the Ministry of Irrigation and Water Development (MIWD) in Ethiopia, the Ghana Irrigation Development Authority (GIDA) in Ghana, the Directorate General of Water Resources (DGRE) in Burkina Faso, the Water Resources Management Authority (WARMA) in Zambia, and the Ministry of Water and Environment (MWE) in Uganda.

A co-design process was implemented involving the use case owner and other beneficial organizations that engaged user case owners in collaboration with various public agencies, academia, and private-sector actors to jointly define problems, co-develop EO-enabled solutions, and agree on delivery mechanisms. Each process produced a clear roadmap detailing activities, stakeholder responsibilities, and timelines. Use case owners and primary beneficiaries led problem definition and data sharing; IWMI researchers developed analytical workflows and models; interns and fellows contributed to analysis; focal persons bridged the gap between researchers and practitioners; and a broad set of stakeholders validated inputs, methods, and outputs.

This process resulted in five operational use cases. In Burkina Faso, a water accounting dashboard for the Nakanbé Moyen sub-basin integrates multi-source data to quantify water availability and consumption, supporting allocation decisions and conflict reduction. In Zambia, a basin-scale water accounting framework for the Lunsemfwa Basin supports water-use permitting by estimating abstractions, tracking interannual changes, and identifying non-compliant irrigation sites. In Uganda, remote sensing-based flood monitoring informs infrastructure development decisions for Kampala. In Ghana and Ethiopia, irrigation scheme-level water accounting tools were developed, tailored to user needs, and supported water user associations in Ghana and generated investment-ready evidence for scheme revitalization in Ethiopia. For all these use cases, a co-created dashboard ensures that all stakeholders contribute to its design and development, resulting in visualizations that are not only interactive and easy to understand but also directly relevant to users’ needs.

These practical use cases highlight how co-creation enhances relevance, ownership, and uptake of EO-based digital tools, offering transferable lessons for scaling digital water innovations across Africa and beyond.