Sustainable Water Management: FAO's WaPOR tool is going global!

FAO's Water Productivity through Open Access of Remotely sensed derived data (WaPOR) will expand to become available around the world thanks to a contribution from the Foreign Affairs Ministry of the Netherlands to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). 

This will allow more countries to be able to access open WaPOR data, making them able to monitor water and land productivity as well as perform water resources assessments, among other applications. 

Globally, agriculture accounts for 72 percent of all fresh water withdrawn from rivers, aquifers, and lakes; therefore, it is a major water user. In attempting to find the best way to use this limited resource in a global context of water scarcity and erratic weather events, focusing solutions on agriculture is a winning course of action.  

WaPOR provides near real-time data that can be used for a range of applications in agriculture and water resources management. The tool processes satellite data to provide information that can help farmers achieve higher, more reliable agricultural yields, allow for the optimization of irrigation systems.   

Expanding data-driven technologies, such as WaPOR, with near real-time information into a globally accessible digital public good to enhance water productivity is an increasing imperative.  

The additional funding of $4.95 million, announced today at World Water Week in Stockholm, will allow for a global expansion of the database and the addition of two new partner-countries  in Asia and Latin America. 

“Water is the key enabler of the transition towards sustainable food systems and improved water governance is needed,” said Kitty van der Heijden, Director-General International Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. That’s the reason we are keen to invest in knowledge and open data. We notice that the WaPOR has impact; it is increasingly used by both public and private sectors” 

The WaPOR platform, lead by FAO’s Land and Water Division, is part of the new Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform, launched in 2020 by the Digitalisation and Informatics Division, accelerating an initiative to break down data silos within the organisation through data integration and increased interoperability. 

This announcement was celebrated by the FAO's Director General, QU Dongyu >>> here. 

This news is headlining at the FAO >>> here.