IBM launches mobile application to report water issues in Africa

American multinational technology and consulting company IBM has launched a new mobile app called WaterWatchers, to equip citizens with a tool to report water-related information and issues with the water distribution system in South Africa.

The new mobile application and its SMS capability will help people to report water leaks, faulty water pipes and other general concerns about waterways.

All the collected and shared information will be analysed to create a single view of the challenges that South Africa’s water distribution system is facing.

The free application will provide citizens with an easy way to report local water issues to a centralised portal.

Local municipalities, water control boards and other water system stakeholders will use the data to prioritise work and make necessary improvements to water infrastructure.

IBM South Africa Smarter Planet executive Ahmed Simjee said the project will help to analyse, predict and manage the country’s water demand.

"It’s a unique exercise in crowdsourcing for South Africa and we encourage every person to become a ‘citizen scientist’- to engage with the environment and help create a big picture map of our water leaks and issues," Simjee added.

"By enabling countless individuals to gather and submit data, WaterWatchers represents a new kind of data aggregation, analytics and visualisation for water planners in South Africa – and is exactly the kind of Big Data challenge IBM excels at solving."

The application has an option to upload photos and requires the user to answer three simple questions about the reported issue, which is uploaded in real-time to a central database.

After 30 days, the data will be analysed and gathered into a meaningful ‘leak hot spot’ map for South Africa.

Tshwane city executive Mayor and Councilor Kgosientso Ramokgopa said the project is an initiative that will help cities to manage the valuable resource.

"This project is a natural extension of the work we have done to address non-revenue water in Tshwane with IBM, and as the capital city we will lead the roll out of this program nationally," Ramokgopa added.

IBM has developed the WaterWatchers application based on its CreekWatch mobile application and has added additional features like SMS capability and to share photos on social networks.

---

Image: IBM’s WaterWatchers application will help South African citizens to report water related issues. Photo: Courtesy of IBM.