WaPORACT

From Data to Action: Translating open-access data into actionable information to improve agricultural water productivity

Increasing competition for and limited availability of water and land resources puts a serious constraint on agricultural production systems. Sustainable land and water management practices will be critical to expand production efficiently and address food insecurity while limiting the impact on the ecosystem. This requires a good understanding of how agricultural systems are performing, what are the underlying causes of spatio-temporal performance variations and the existing potential for improvement. Therefore, building satellite observations based tools to analyse and compare agriculture and irrigation performances is vital.

To translate WaPOR data into actionable information, eLEAF, under the WaterPIP project (funded by the Dutch Foreign Ministry), has developed an open-access tool (WaPORACT). The WaPORACT enables users to extract, analyse, visualise and interpret WaPOR geodata. Currently, companies in Kenya, Ethiopia, Sudan and Morocco use the tool to support governments, river basin authorities, irrigation scheme managers and farmers in their tasks. The tool is being used to manage land and water resources from crop field to basin level; evaluate irrigation development interventions; assess crop damage risk; and plan and design irrigation schemes. 

For further details see the github page and below you will find tutorials (more will follow) or check out our playlist on youtube

This repo hosts tools to extract, interpret, analyse and visualize open-access geodata to improve water productivity. Currently, the focus is on data such as available in the FAO WaPOR database but also other open-access datasets will be considered in future. The tools in this repo can be used as building blocks to create customized services to target specific user needs.

Check out the online exhibition at the World Water Week (registration required)