Magina Misha
that's what healy for water is life
without water we die we all know this
and for this reason the global narrative
on how to tackle water scarcity has been
intensely focused and ensuring that
everyone has just enough safe drinking
water to quench their personal thirst
and survive but this surely is not
enough what kind of existence is there
when all you have is just enough water
to survive water impacts everything and
it is a prerequisite for social
stability when water is scarce it
constrains economic growth and
exacerbates key global security concerns
such as diseases conflict and food
production this is the reason that NGOs
have spent hundreds of millions of
dollars trying to increase water
availability across rural communities
one lonely well at a time but it isn't
working in sub-saharan Africa for
example 50% of all wells fail within two
to three years of being installed
leaving communities right back at square
wine I know something about this I grew
up in the Caribbean on an island where
water scarcity was an everyday reality
since then though I've spent an entire
career studying and working on water
I've worked with the US private sector
and on behalf of the federal government
now that I'm based in Kenya I face a
whole new set of challenges around water
that have become my life's work because
I care about the progressive development
of communities and water is foundational
to making this happen what people always
seem to get wrong is that there's not a
lack of water in Africa in fact the
supplies are plenty this is exactly what
Nigerian attributes legend Fela Kuti was
lamenting more than 30 years ago he's
saying there's water under ground water
over ground water in the air but look to
your left look to your right
you can't see any the Congo region alone
has as much water as the United States
all of Africa has more than a trillion
cubic meters of underground water more
than 100 million acres of arable land
holds on to some of this water so if
there is so much water why are so many
living these water constrained lives I
believe that the root cause for all of
this has been the absence of a
compelling alternative vision for how to
ensure water availability
no one has sketched this not local
leaders and not the NGOs water provision
is serious business yet everyone thinks
that they can drill a well and solve
water problems
this is trivialized what it takes to
keep water infrastructure up and running
just as it says trivialized what the
role is for water as an enabler for
social stability but this is about to
change we do know that given data
technology and expertise if creatively
adapted to fit the context that we can
open up a whole new world of
possibilities I lead a team of research
scientists in Kenya who seek to inspire
a new generation across sub-saharan
Africa with a dream of ensuring free
flowing water across their communities
and we think we can use data to make
this happen if water provision becomes
more about service delivery for food
production Public Health Commerce
investments and overall community
stability and growth instead of merely
being about the installation of pipes
and pumps what new dreams and ideas
could we inspire what new global water
solutions might we find so we've started
to drive this revolution by building
what we call digital aquifers a
connected ecosystem of things and humans
that runs on groundwater but lives in
the cloud so I'll just give you
background on the basics this aquifer
idea that we're talking about it's
essentially an underground water storage
tank think of it like a bank residents
of a community with groundwater are
account holders the account can get
overdrawn if it is not clear
how much each person is allowed and how
much they're going to need in the future
so to properly manage the account we
need to know at all times how much what
do we have how much is being pulled out
and how much is being put back in so
this digital aquifer then that we're
talking about is essentially the
physical aquifer that is instrumented
and quantified so we have sensors linked
to wells intermittent mobile data from
humans weather data and a treasure trove
of paper records that we use to build
these digital aquifers we recreate the
physical aquifer on the cloud building
models that tell us how fast water is
being pulled out and how fast it's being
pulled back put back in as new wells and
bore holes are added revised estimates
of water levels and water availability
are developed so what we get is new data
that can fundamentally change the global
water conversation in Kenya groundwater
wells are already streaming information
on water quantity this real-time data
helps us to understand when wells are
about to fail so that we can marshal an
army of water professionals who have the
spare parts to fix the problem the point
of all of this also is to understand
where where new wells should even be
built in the first place so that we can
ensure that they are properly maintained
and not subject to overuse this is how
you stop focusing on quenching people's
thirst and start ensuring that there's
enough water to go around enough to
ensure that individuals and communities
thrive and this is only the start
think of the many business and financial
transactions around water that we could
now enable instead of only accounting
for the physical totals and quality we
could also think about the risks that
are created by scarcity and provide
insurance against these risks on demand
imagine what this would mean for the
millions of small-scale farms around the
world especially the ones in sub-saharan
Africa that are primarily rain-fed new
wells with water data would open up a
whole new set of services that would
reduce the barriers to economic growth
that water scarcity bills banks would
certainly feel better lending money to
farmers who they knew
had a reliable water supply all of this
water data would also help water rich
developing countries better negotiate
with wealthy wealthier external entities
who are looking to capitalize on the
resource remember much of Africa was
colonized because there was an untapped
unappreciated underground resource this
time around though things should be
different
resourceful looting cannot happen when
people know and value what it is that
they have now Africa is not the only
place that will benefit from digital
aquifers this is a global water solution
in the Philippines for example Digital
aquifers are being built to help the
government increase its operational
efficiency as it looks
to ensure equitable water distributions
for all Filipinos California could
benefit from digital aquifers reservoirs
are running low rivers are running dry
and the state of the ground water
resource is unclear in the home of
Silicon Valley this is the last place on
earth that anyone would expect to be
having debates about on equal water
access and on even water distribution in
the absence of reliable supporting data
yet here we are so California whenever
you're ready
Africa has got a solution for you
stable social systems are built on water
and driven by data there are many places
around the world where there's actually
a physical lack of water and tough
decisions are being made about where
people should live and how much food
should be grown because risky bets were
made on water availability as
populations increase and as the climate
changes global water challenges are only
becoming more complex luckily though
we're in a time where we've got the data
the tools and the expertise to forge a
new path forward that can ensure our
water secure communities Africa is
leading the way and if we do this right
we all thrive thank you