FLOWERED is a project funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme “H2020 WATER- 5c-2015”, which aims at contributing to the development of a sustainable water management system in areas affected by fluoride contamination in water, soil and food in the African Rift Valley (Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania), thus to improve living standards of its population.

In recent months, land cover maps have been realized by Planetek Italia using ESA Sentinel images and FLOWERED researchers have been redoubling their efforts on the ground. After Kenya and Tanzania, sampling work continues in Ethiopia.

On the basis of this information, FLOWERED GeoDBapp has been created with the purpose to be ready for ground truth data collection and validation. It allows concretely to locate the water points, and to record the attributes of these water points: photo, depth, type (modern, traditional, solar, etc.). It also records the GPS coordinates of the water point. A specific activity has been dedicated to the collection of information on water use and land use, involving local communities to collect the data on water contamination through the app.

This new application called “GeoDBapp” will allow updating the New Geo database developed by the project. Training sessions are planned within the next weeks in collaboration with CGT-UNISI and OSS.

What is the FLOWERED GeoDBApp?

It is an innovative tool for water management and agriculture institutions at regional and local level. This new mobile application is dedicated to the collection of local geo-information on land use, water uses, irrigation systems, household features, use of drinking water and the other information needful for the specific knowledge of water supply involving local communities through participative approach. This system is structured to be populated, through an action of crowd-generating data by local communities (students and people involved mainly by NGOs). 

Read more about the project: http://www.floweredproject.org