Mapping Water: Global Challenge, Local Solutions

The ability to model the availability and movement of water is a huge asset for countries and regions seeking to respond to natural disasters or develop plans to manage resources sustainably under climate variability and human alterations of the landscape. Similar to the Deforestation Monitor project supported by Google, which provides local capacity to developing countries to preserve their forests, this project is creating a framework within the Google Earth Engine (EE) for integrating and interpreting public domain data for predicting water quantity and quality as well as hazard-prone regions under changing climate, policy or management. The researchers will apply this framework to several basins, including one in India and one in East Africa.

In India, the project will examine the Himalayan-fed Koshi River, whose avulsing nature claims thousands of lives from flooding and stresses food production.

In East Africa, the researchers will study the consequences of climate change, inadequate infrastructure and a growing population heavily relying on subsistence for the integrity of Lake Malawi.

Project Lead

  • McKnight Professor Efi Foufoula-Georgiou, Civil Engineering; National Center for Earth-surface Dynamics

Partners