E-Geo-Library: Digital Innovation for Integrated Water Sector Management in Ethiopia

IRCON partnering with the Mekelle University is creating E-Geo-Library to gather all relevant information regarding water sector and keep them under one system in digital form available for all stakeholders.  The initiative ensures sustainability by using open-source systems, providing training for university staff.

Creating E-Geo-Library aims to gather all relevant information regarding water sector and keep them under one system in digital form available for all stakeholders. This will result into development of new knowledge, improvement in communication and providing available data. Consequently, it will contribute to better planning and faster development of water resources which has direct impact into the fast-increasing population. 

Along with the document management system (DMS), a spatial extension will be introduced to address documents to geographical coordinates or regional units.  A customized map viewer will use the spatially indexed data to display the library content as thematic map layers. The interactive map viewer will not only provide a better overview of the stored data, but also offer a graphical interface for combining with multiple datasets shared by other partners and institutions.  

 This way the E-Geo-Library will bring a unique and innovative solution that will turn a standard document repository into an interactive application. The whole system will be hosted on the MU server accessible via MU websites from where it will encourage MU staff, students, and partners to explore and further collaborate in the use, collection and sharing of data. We believe this is an ideal solution for the practical use of geosciences.