Atlas of change

Water professionals in Salima District, Malawi, explain the district’s water point map.

23 June 2008

A recent report looks at how WaterAid is the leading the way with mapping innovations, ensuring that access to water and sanitation reaches those most in need.

In many developing countries, there is little information about the state of access to water and sanitation at the local level. This means that any water points or latrines that are built are often allocated without looking at the bigger picture and those most in need are not necessarily prioritised.  

But when information about access to water and sanitation is displayed in a map, the distribution is clearly conveyed and areas of need are starkly highlighted.

In general, water and sanitation mapping captures information in three areas:

• the availability and quality of water resources, including variation under dry season, drought and extreme climate conditions (eg groundwater availability  or levels of fluoride or arsenic); 

A GIS map, such as the example of Mpwapwa district in Tanzania pictured here, can display information about the spatial distribution of access to water and sanitation services across the rural areas of a local government district.

• access to water and sanitation services (eg analysing which parts of the population are underserved, or which water schemes do not function and why)

• demand and use of water supply and sanitation services for domestic, agricultural and productive purposes (such as irrigation, beer brewing, brick making, mining etc)

WaterAid first began mapping in Malawi where it employed teams of mobile researchers to map the distribution of Malawi's existing water points in 90% of the country using a hand held GPS devices. This information was then compared to information on population so that the ratio of water points to people could be accurately calculated.

Other WaterAid country programmes, as well as other aid agencies, have also started to use similar mapping systems, resulting in far reaching impacts.

In the Afram Plains in Ghana, citizens started to voice their demands at district assembly meetings based on their increased awareness about the inequality of service coverage that this type of mapping exposed.

The same data also led to a competition between sub-district councils to improve water supply and sanitation services for their constituencies. The district assembly, for its part, acted upon results by allocating, for the first time, funds for sanitation services.

The assembly started using data about coverage levels to redistribute funding for water points between sub-districts and to request additional financial resources from the national government.

WaterAid is now building on its successes so far and scaling up this innovative tool to create a true atlas for change.

Read the full briefing paper, Mapping for better accountability in service delivery  (411Mb)

Read more of WaterAid's research on mapping

Find out more with our mapping resources

WaterAid awareness layer on Google Earth
Mapping in Malawi film
Mapping in Pakistan audio interview ( MP3 2Mb)