TigerNET - Earth Observation for Management of Water Resources in Africa

TIGER-NET is a EUR1.5m project of the European Space Agency (ESA), designed to increase African participation in the rapidly evolving global Earth Observation (EO) system. The project hopes to make a significant contribution to integrated water resources management in Africa. A consortium led by GeoVille and GRAS, a DHI subsidiary company, has been selected to carry out the project. 

The TIGER initiative – launched by ESA in 2001 - supports water authorities, technical centres and other stakeholders in the African water sector to increase their ability to collect and use water by exploiting EO products and services. The newest TIGER activity, TIGER-NET is developing EO solutions for integrated water resource management (IWRM) to support numerous African water authorities. Particular attention will be given to major trans-boundary basins in Africa, such as the Nile and the Lake Chad Basin. 
A cost-effective water observation and information system based on open source software and exploiting satellite data will be installed in each of the selected water authorities to monitor and assess water resources. 

TIGER-NET was officially launched at the World Water Forum in Marseilles in March 2012 in a side event chaired by the African Ministerial Conference on Water. It will run for a period of three years, starting 1 April 2012.

Successful and sustainable development of earth observation applications requires dedicated capacity building and training of African scientists and water authorities. Accordingly, capacity building will be an important part of the project. 

Partners: As project partners, GeoVille and GRAS will be leading the consortium with support from the following organisations: Institute of Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing, Vienna University of Technology (TU Vienna, Austria), Dept. of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark (DTU ENV, Denmark) and Department of International Health, University of Copenhagen (ISIM, Denmark).