Towards resolving data scarcity in water resources management

There is global consensus among scientists and policy makers that the scarcity of high-resolution water monitoring data remains one of the most fundamental bottlenecks to sustainable water resources management (WRM). This is especially the case in the Horn of Africa study region, where droughts frequently devastate livelihoods through the collapse of unmonitored water supply infrastructure. However, improving monitoring technologies, telecommunications, and WRM institutional capacities significantly increase the feasibility of collecting hydrological and water security data for integration into decision-making systems. In this study, I use mixed-methods research to assess the potential role of these data and how high-resolution monitoring systems can be upscaled. Through expert interviews, I find that the availability of water monitoring data can support a shift of WRM and drought management away from reactive mechanisms, where the planning of interventions and their financing are principally guided by socio-economic signals of humanitarian needs. Instead, proactive management systems can be developed, where water monitoring evidence guides a more localised planning and financing of actions by providing more confident value propositions for ex-ante investments. Anticipatory actions, taken in the critical window between a drought’s first forecast and the onset of humanitarian response, may be rapidly financed through pre-positioned mechanisms if high-resolution water monitoring data is available. To advance the investment basis for hydrological data, I use interview findings to map groundwater data’s benefits to 18 stakeholder groups, notably identifying its capability to evolve WRM methods towards evidence-based, decentralised and anticipatory practices. To advance the feasibility of monitoring, I present new quantitative methods for upscaling groundwater monitoring systems and a 5-stage framework of expert recommendations for addressing monitoring implementation barriers. The thesis makes important contributions to the investment and feasibility bases for water monitoring, and I conclude by identifying 27 further research opportunities to build upon its findings.