BrazilTensing helps Ghana Water with spatial intelligence capabilities
European consulting firm Tensing has aided the Ghanaian national water company with better tracking its footprint and services using advanced mapping capabilities.
Ghana Water Company is the national water utility in Ghana that provides water services to urban areas in the country. With urban areas rapidly expanding, the company is tasked with expanding their services in step with the increasing demand.
To help Ghana Water manage better their operations around geographic expansion and new service connections, Dutch consulting firm Tensing offered support with cutting-edge geographic and mapping tools.
“Each year Ghana Water adds around 30,000 to 40,000 connections to their distribution network,” explained Jelmer Akkerman, a senior consultant at Tensing. “To enable the realization of the connections, effective information collection techniques and recording in the company’s geographic information systems (GIS) is required.”
This is where Tensing’s entered the fold. “We worked with Ghana Water to design and test a GIS-based workflow for the registration of new service connections,” said Akkerman.
“The aim of the project was to provide a solution that Ghana Water could immediately deploy in day-to-day operational work,” he added.
The new approach was tested in a pilot program restricted to Ghana Water’s service utilities in the Accra East region, a district of the capital. This initial implementation on a smaller scale was successful and will be used as a roadmap to roll out the program nationwide.
The new approach and tooling helps Ghana Water collect and analyze data related to its water services, such as water quality and availability. With this information, the utility company can make better decisions about how to provide water services to the communities they serve, particularly as these services continue to expand.
Tensing, which has 5 offices in Europe, is known for its expertise in spatial intelligence and has more than 30 years of experience in the field.
Despite taking some steps towards improvement, Ghana still has a long way to go to achieve universal availability of clean drinking water for all its citizens. Around 88% of the urban population of Ghana has access to at least basic drinking water.
There are dramatic disparities between the availability and quality of water in urban and rural environments. Rural water supplies are plagued by sanitation issues, which often lead to the spread of diseases.
