ESA TIGER

Summary

In 2002, ESA has initiated TIGER as a concrete step to implement the recommendations of the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). TIGER aims at developing sustainable Earth Observation (EO) information services for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in developing countries, with a particular focus on Africa.

One of the main activities carried out within the TIGER initiative is the support to water research in Africa. This is carried out through dedicated capacity building and training activities. In this context and in order to improve and enhance water research results and capacity in Africa, 50 research projects and studies were selected in 2005, among more than 95 proposals submitted by African and north-south research teams, to be the initial core of the TIGER research component. The objective of the selected projects is twofold: 1) improving knowledge on local, regional and water resources in Africa; 2) enhancing human, technical and institutional capacity to derive, disseminate and use water-relevant information by exploiting the advantages of EO technology.

The main objectives of this project cluster are:

• develop human, technical and institutional capacity to use EO technology within the water management processes
• Contribute to develop sustainable information services and systems to improve Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) (at regional, national and local scales) by using space-based technology to overcome the water information gap in African countries
• Support the consolidation of a critical mass of technical centres, water authorities and universities in Africa with the skills and capabilities to derive, disseminate and use space-based water relevant information for IWRM
• Contribute to improve water research results in Africa by exploiting the advantages of EO technology.