Millions of people living in the drought prone Horn of Africa face persistent threat from a lack of safe, reliable and affordable water year-round. The arid regions of Kenya are experiencing increasing frequency and severity of drought conditions.
Virridy's satellite connected sensors are monitoring millions of people's water supplies in the region on a daily basis and linking data to local, national and international agencies including the Kenya National Drought Management Authority and the Famine Early Warning Systems Network.
The Drought Resilience Impact Platform, DRIP, combines the technical leadership of Virridy and CU Boulder and the Nairobi-based Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development with water security actions taken by the Millennium Water Alliance, national governments, and local communities in Kenya. DRIP monitors water security, creates actionable drought forecasts, and incentivizes water system operations to ensure that when rains fail, water access is secure and costly drought emergencies are prevented.
Related Publications
- NASA.gov – A Steady DRIP with NASA Satellites
- Estimating groundwater use and demand in arid Kenya through assimilation of satellite data and in-situ sensors with machine learning toward drought early action – Science of the Total Environment, July 2022
- A contribution to drought resilience in East Africa through groundwater pump monitoring – Science of the Total Environment, August 2021
- Reducing drought emergencies in the Horn of Africa – Science of the Total Environment, July 2020
- Using Feedback to Improve Accountability in Global Environmental Health and Engineering – Environmental Science and Technology, December 2020