Public Release of the TIGER Water Observation and

Special Edition,
September,2014
Public Release of the TIGER
Water Observation and Information System
Contents
Public release of the
WOIS
1
WOIS Capacity
2
Product Portfolio
3
Software Access
4
TIGER-NET Project
Information
4
As part of the TIGER initiative, ESA funded the TIGER-NET project to develop and provide
an open-source Water Observation and Information Systems (WOIS) enabling to support
monitoring, assessing and inventorying water resources in a cost-effective manner using
Earth Observation (EO) data. The selected consortium was led by GeoVille and included DHI
GRAS, TU Wien, DTU and ISIM.
Since the project was officially kicked off at the World Water Forum in Marseilles in March
2012, the technical teams were busy to lay down the requirements with the African water
authorities and developed the software in collaboration with the African experts. So far the
first version has been installed and trained at eight participating transboundary and
national African Water Authorities: Lake Chad Basin Commission, Nile Basin Initiative,
Volta Basin Authority, Zambezi Watercourse Commission, Department of Water Affairs in
Namibia, South Africa and Zambia as well as MettelSat of Democratic Republic of Congo.
We are pleased to ANNOUNCE THE PUBLIC RELEASE OF THE CURRENT WOIS VERSION,
which empowers Water Authorities to produce a comprehensive suite of water related
information products based on observations from satellites. The main advantages of the
WOIS are:

Satellites provide transboundary observation capacity for river basins

EO derived products provide transparent information for reporting and IWRM

As an open-source software the WOIS including dedicated workflows is a
sustainable and user friendly tool
(see for more details below – page 2: full software specifications, page 3: product portfolio,
page 4: download information).
A short video overview of the WOIS capacity is available under
http://www.tiger.esa.int/page_eoservices_wois.php
The recent publication in the Special Remote Sensing Issue on Earth Observation for
Water Resource Management in Africa provides the scientific background and in depth
insights of the various processing chains.
Edited by:
GeoVille
Information
The next release of the software is focused on the Sentinel (1 & 2) support to ensure a fully
operational capacity. Already the current WOIS has an initial Senitel-1 processing capacity
for flood mapping, which will be extended to all water body related information products. This
was recently demonstrated when Namibian authorities triggered a Sentinel-1A tasking of the
Caprivi flood plain on the 13th of April, which was processed with the WOIS to capture the full
extent of the flood, providing a crucial monitoring capacity to help decide how to respond to a
serious flood.
Until May 2015 TIGER-NET will continue to make the WOIS ready for the Sentinel missions
and provide dedicated support to all participating African water authorities. The TIGER
Capacity Building Facility, responsible for implementing the capacity building element within
the TIGER initiative, will integrate the WOIS in its training programme on monitoring,
assessing and inventorying of water resources using EO.
The TIGER Newsletter
1
The Water Observation and Information System Capacity
The WOIS has been designed in direct response to user
requirements, i.e., based on extensive consultation,
review and analysis of the user needs in terms of their
current technological and personnel capacity, applicationspecific monitoring demands, as well as geo-information
and system needs.
The corresponding WOIS is a multipurpose system
consisting of a multi-connectivity database, extraction and
processing of the satellite EO data through customized
processing facilities, and integrative tools and models
aimed at decision support e.g. Hydrological modelling and
GIS embedded visualisation and analysis tools.
The WOIS is designed around Quantum GIS (QGIS),
which acts as the front-end Graphical-User-Interface
(GUI). The other components of WOIS are: GRASS GIS
(providing raster and vector analysis algorithms), BEAM
and NEST (processing of optical, thermal and radar ESA
and ESA Third Party Missions data products), Orfeo
Toolbox (high resolution image processing), Soil Water
Assessment Tool – SWAT (hydrological modelling), R
scripts (statistical and graphical tools) and PostGIS
(spatial database).
Figure 2. The WOIS graphical user interface, including the
embedded workflow library (center) and wizard-based
processing workflow (right).
The plugin has been used to generate a workflow library
with step-by-step guidance for the users to extract specific
water information products. The workflows are first and
foremost supporting novice and intermediate users, while
the more advanced users may choose to explore the full
suite of algorithms and tools available from SEXTANTE in
order to create their own workflows. Moreover, preparameterized SEXTANTE models for certain products
are provided to enable an automatized production of
information flows for operational applications.
As part of the WOIS framework a PostGIS database is
provided, enabling de-centralized operation of multiple
user identities. A library of partly automatized
import/export function further ensures the integration
and/or connection to existing IT infrastructures and
databases.
SYSTEM KEY ADVANTAGES
Cost and license free – Open Source
Easily transferable – Easy to operate
Capable of:
retrieving, storing and processing EO satellite data
as well as integrating in-situ data
producing EO-based water related information
products
Figure 1. Open-source software packages integrated as part of
the Water Observation and Information System (WOIS).
The functionality from the different software components
are integrated using the SEXTANTE spatial data analysis
library, which provides a framework for incorporating
algorithms from the various providers (such as GRASS
GIS, BEAM, etc.) into QGIS (Figure 1). A key advantage
of SEXTANTE is the ability to seamlessly use
functionalities from different providers for data processing
and analysis, and via a unique QGIS plugin it is possible
to sequentially combine algorithms from the different
providers into wizard-based processing i.e. standardised
workflows of complex tasks with instructions (Figure 2).
The TIGER Newsletter
integrating hydrological modeling functions
supporting decisions based on full GIS framework
mapping and reporting functionality
integrating and linking to existing user systems
scaling up for future applications and demands
supporting the full observational capacity of the
upcoming Sentinels
Source: TIGER-NET
2
WOIS Product Portfolio
The operational and practical use of the WOIS to support
Integrated Water resource Management (IWRM) in Africa
is practically enabled through the capacity to derive a
comprehensive suite of water related information
products. These have been demonstrated via a series of
user-specific demonstration cases, which are viewable via
the TIGER-NET PORTAL and are described in the WOIS
publication.
The WOIS derivable water information products include:
Water body mapping (small/large, shoreline
changes, wetlands)
Water quality monitoring (lake surface
temperature, chlorophyll and sediment load)
Hydrological monitoring (precipitation,
evapotranspiration, soil moisture and derived
indicators, water level)
Hydrological modelling (scenario analysis, nearreal time water discharge and operational
forecasting)
Flood forecasting, monitoring, historical and
vulnerability assessment
High to medium land cover, change and
degradation mapping (incl. land degradation
vegetation indices)
Soil erosion potential mapping
Urban sanitation planning support
The detailed description and technical specifications for
each WOIS water information product is available via the
TIGER-Net description of products and the WOIS System
and Product Portfolio pdf.
Figure 3.Examples of (from top to bottom)

Pan African Operational Hydro Meteorological WOIS
products (evapotranspiration, rainfall, soil moisture &
derived Indicators) for focused basin wide characterization;

Long term high resolution land cover characterization and
monitoring of changes, showing major land cover
characteristic relevant to integrated water resource
management

Zambezi Sentinel-1 SAR flood extent monitoring (left) and
WOIS dynamic flood mapping (right) capacity providing
essential information for flood monitoring.
Source: ESA & TIGER-NET
The TIGER Newsletter
3
WOIS Software Access
The TIGER initiative is pleased to announce the public
release of the current version of the open-source Water
Observation and Information System (WOIS), aiming to
enable African water authorities the production and
application of a range of satellite earth observation based
information products needed for Integrated Water
Resource Management (IWRM) in Africa.
The WOIS is available freely to any interested user
pending a short registration.
The Download page will offer the possibility to download
the WOIS Installation and User guide (providing system
specifications and installation instructions), WOIS and
Products Portfolio (description of the products, which
can also be interactively searched on the TIGER-NET
PORTAL), WOIS Software (single zip file of 2.7 GB or
multi-part edition to be recompiled) and access to the
source codes (for programmers).
The help files contained in the WOIS application windows
provide useful documentation about the implemented
workflows.
To download the WOIS, please register following the
link appearing at:
http://www.tiger.esa.int/page_eoservices_wois.php.
Source: ESA & TIGER-NET
TIGER-NET Project Information
The WOIS was developed within the TIGER initiative as
part of the TIGER-NET project in a close collaboration
with several African trans-boundary and national water
authorities, which provided input on the specifications,
tested and demonstrated the use of the WOIS. The initial
WOIS host institutions are:
Nile Basin Initiative
Lake Chad Basin
Commission
Department of Water Affairs,
Namibia
Department of Water Affairs,
South Africa
Department of Water Affairs,
Zambia
Zambezi Watercourse
Commission (ZAMCOM)
Volta Basin Authority
Mettelsat, Democratic
Republic of Congo
For detailed information about the TIGER-NET project,
please visit the website.
Source: ESA
The TIGER Newsletter
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