WaPOR and WaterPIP at the 2021 Cairo Water Week

On October 27, the FAO hosted a session at the Cairo Water Week that explored the use of remote-sensing data titled: Water Productivity Improvement in Practice from Remote Sensing Data at Multiple Geographical Scales.

▶ The recording of the session can be found here, as well as in the resources section of this website.

Naglaa Elbendary, Irrigation Specialist at the FAO Egypt Office in Cairo and the WaPOR national project coordinator, presented on the WaPOR project outlining a history of the use of WaPOR data in Egypt during the first phase of the project. She spoke of the water accounting  that was carried out at the irrigation system level and of the development of an application that provided farmers with advice on when to irrigate their fields. Moreover, she outlined the prospects for the unfolding second phase of WaPOR in the country. 

Karin Bremer from Meta Meta presented on a set of country indicators such as actual evapotranspiration, total biomass production, gross biomass water productivity, among others, that can be useful for defining priorities in the water sector and act as a starting point to discussion in country programming. These indicators that can be accessed in this google earth engine application, were produced with the support of the Islamic Development Bank, in the context of the Water Scarcity Initiative using WaPOR data. 

Dr. Ahmed Elmi, an associate professor at the Irrigation and Hydraulics Department of the Cairo University, presented on the use of WaPOR data at the subnational level where he showed the results of an analysis that aimed at comparing the water productivity of sugarcane and sugar beet in Egypt. 

The session was hybrid, with the speakers being present in the conference venue in Cairo, while the WaPOR team moderated virtually from Rome.

Both Meta Meta and FAO are WaterPIP (Water Productivity In Practice) partners. Head to the WaterPIP project website to find out more about the project.