Earth Observation for Water Budgets — White Volta River Basin
University of Energy and Natural Resources — World Bank Africa Centre of ExcellenceMSc ResearcherCompleted Dec 2022
Funding World Bank Africa Centre of Excellence Scholarship
MSc research using earth observation to monitor water budgets for river basin management in the White Volta, and the methodological foundation for the continental water accounting work that followed.
The thesis asked whether earth observation alone can support water budget monitoring at basin scale in a setting where ground gauging is sparse — the condition most West African basins are actually in. The White Volta, transboundary and agriculturally intensive, is a demanding test case for that claim.
The work established the remote-sensing water accounting approach that runs through the later continental modelling: satellite-derived water balance components assembled into a basin budget that a river basin authority can maintain without a dense observation network.
It was completed under the World Bank Africa Centre of Excellence Scholarship and is the basis of a manuscript currently under review, co-authored with colleagues at UENR and IWMI.
