Global MapAid or simply "MapAid"

Vision: Drinking water, irrigation, and food supply at lower cost for small farmers !

Method: Vision: Using AI to detect groundwater for small farmers !

Water: This substance underpins hope, jobs, and a future. It spells community harmony and regional peace !

Misson

Our laser focus is the creation of an AI generated shallow groundwater map in East Africa, to optimise shallow well drilling for small farmer irrigation and drinking water.

Cost is not a barrier as the map is inside our WellMapr(TM) app, on a phone or PC, and free at the point of use.

Our mission is impact-oriented. Small farm irrigation from a shallow well (<30 meters depth) is proven to double or triple the food supply (1), and there is 25% undernourishment in Ethiopia (2) where this project is working. Water from a shallow well, after testing, is also far cleaner than most river water, thus reducing gut infections that are widespread from 60% to 80% of the population (3). Water from a nearby well, significantly reduces the daily hours spent lugging waterby women & children, time that can be spent on education, or leisure (4). A well nearby, also means women are less exposed to predatory males when they collect water (5). The longer-term impacts of better soil water conservation mean enhanced CO2 conversion into soil carbon, which when scaled to the global2.5 billion small farmers, will significantly help climate change mitigation (6).

To achieve this mission, our laser focus in this project is the pilot testing of a cheap and easy-to-use AI-generated shallow groundwater map in Ethiopia, to help decision-makers optimise shallow well drilling for small farmer irrigation and drinking water, and indeed to help optimise a complete water strategy for communities, including those without shallow groundwater.

It is called "WellMapr(TM)". We have been working on it, with George Mason University and Arba Minch University, since January 2020. And although it is a hard task, we have never given up !

The WellMapr(TM) app, on a phone or PC, will be free at the point of use.

Put simply it is "the hydrologist in your pocket".

The original need for this shallow groundwater map was clearly vocalised at an interview, by the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture and their senior irrigation engineer Seyoum Getachew, and Rupert Douglas-Bate from Global MapAid, in Addis Ababa, in June 2012. The need has been repeated multiple times by other senior Ethiopian water specialists, ever since. Depending on whom you ask only 5% of land suitable for shallow irrigation is irrigated today (7). And the literature varies too, in the total area of land available, for shallow irrigation, it could be 60,000 square kilometers (flatter land) to 120,000 square kilometers (including steeper land).

This map can help guide donors and aid agencies working and small farmers on shallow well programmes, to help identify more sustainable locations for the shallow wells, taking into account, population densities and aquifer recharge. It can help these stakeholders collaborate better, drive out risk, and drive down costs for shallow well programmes. It can also help identify where groundwater is unavailable and alternative drinking water and soil water conservation strategies could be gainfully employed, such as sand dams, rainwater catchment cisterns, and deep bed farming.

According to several MapAid interviews with senior Ethiopian hydrologists and agricultural scientists, since 2012, there are simply not enough properly experienced hydrologists in Ethiopia to ensure accurate drilling or digging sites.

Often the hit rate for groundwater drilling or digging can be 50%. But WellMapr will significantly improve that hit rate, and we are aiming for over 70% while ensuring sustainable recharge.

Since 2016 it has been agreed with our local partners at Arba Minch University, that we will eventually set up a Sustainable Knowledge Centre, or SKC, to promote small farm water conservation techniques, in both the presence, and absence of suitable shallow groundwater. This will happen after Well Mapr is established, probably in Year 2 or 3. The establishment of WellMapr is a first foundational step, towards generating and promoting a much bigger set of sustainable water strategies, through courses for diverse stakeholders, at the SKC, that will refer to WellMapr. It will help accelerate growth and social development in the value chain of water and food security organisations, ranging from small farmers to international donors. While the mission of MapAid andWellMapr is to immediately and significantly improve farmers' lives through water management today, tomorrow's beneficial impacts are noteworthy. The additional benefits for climate change mitigation through better irrigation and other soil water conservation strategies will result in far higher capture of atmospheric carbon, and conversion to soil carbon.

In Ethiopia, 47 million people live under the poverty line on small farms (8), while across the planet there are 2.5 billion people on small farms (9) of which at least 800 million are classed as very poor by the World Bank (10).

In summary, our mission is impact-oriented. All of our science, our aid work, our passion - and the many long hours our teams have already spent developing WellMapr - are towards our one goal of solving sustainable small farm water, to benefit small farmers in Ethiopia, including clean water and more food.

Citations

1) Groundwater resource potential and status of groundwater resource development in Ethiopia.(2019) Authors Mengistu, H.A., Demlie, M.B. & Abiye, T.A. Review: Hydrogeol

J 27, 1051–1065. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10040-019-01928-x

2) Prevalence of undernourishment (% of population)- in Ethiopia(2023) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SN.ITK.DEFC.ZS?locations=ET

3) Prevalence and Associated Risk Factors of Intestinal Parasites and Enteric Bacterial Infections among Selected Region Food Handlers of Ethiopia during (2014–2022):A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis, National Library of Medicine, Abayeneh Girma and Aleka Aemiro

4) Collection time inequalities: fetching water in Ethiopia A. Cassivi, 41st WEDCInternational Conference, (2018) E. O. D. Waygood & C. C. Dorea

5) Water to Thrive, Why Has the Global Water Crisis Disproportionately Impacted Women in Ethiopia

?(2018) https://www.watertothrive.org/

6) The 4 per 1000 Initiative https://www.futurepolicy.org/

7) Assessing potential land suitable for surface irrigation using groundwater in Ethiopia. (2017) Authors: AbeyouW.Worqlul, Jaehak Jeonga Yihun T.Dile, Javier Osorioa, Petra Schmitter, Thomas Gerik, R.Srinivasan, Neville Clark, Elesvier, Applied Geography Volume 85

8) Farm Africa website https://www.farmafrica.org/ethiopia/ethiopia

9) Viewpoint. Small holders can feed the world. (2023) IFAD

10) For Up to 800 Million Rural Poor,a Strong World Bank Commitment to Agriculture (2014)

https://www.worldbank.org/--

Membership

Across the world MapAid has a volunteer membership of more than thirty experienced specialists, covering a wide range of disciplines, such as mapping, geographic information systems, social media & communications, artificial intelligence, hydrology, agriculture, irrigation, humanitarian and development work.

We also have several teams in Ethiopia, covering tasks such as AI development, data curation and end user analysis.

Board

Paul Davies, Ph.D, PG Dip, Chair

Rupert Douglas-Bate B.Sc, M.Sc, MBA, CEO/Secretary

Algernon Sloane B.Sc

Jaqueline Sloane B.A

Financial Management

Paul Davies, Ph.D, PG Dip, Chair, and Watchman Accountants Ltd.,

Registrations

Global MapAid was registered with the England & Wales Charity Commission as a charity with No. 1124301 in June 2008, and as a Limited Company No. 6577773 in April 2008. It had been founded earlier in the USA being registered in 2004 in California, and today it is a confirmed Omprakash Partner. Omprakash is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt U.S. non-profit charity and serves as Global MapAid’s Fiscal Sponsor. The EIN (Tax ID) is 20-8655418 and donations are tax-deductible for U.S. based donors.