This project is a partnership between the Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory (NREL) at CSU, the Institute of Geo-Informatics and Earth Observation Sciences (I-GEOS) at Mekelle University (MU), and the City Water Administration for Mekelle, Ethiopia. CSU is the lead organization for the project entitled Building Geospatial Networks for Mapping Infrastructure, Land-use and Water Resources in Mekelle, Ethiopia, with the support and collaboration of the US Department of State’s Office of Space and Advanced Technology (OES/SAT) and Humanitarian Information Unit (HIU), Secondary Cities Project. Contributors at CSU include Paul Evangelista (PI), Amanda West, Nicholas Young, Gabriel Senay, Ryan Anderson, and Cara Steger; additionally, Melinda Laituri is the PI for the Secondary Cities Project.
Partners at MU include Daniel Teka, Mulubrhan Balehegn, Mitiku Gabrehiwot Tesfaye, Amina Abdelkadir, Mulugeta Sebhatleab, and Fikur Yifter. The Mayor of Mekelle, Ato Daniel Asseffa, is the primary representative and partner from the City Water Administration.
The goal of the proposed project is to build local capacity in geospatial technologies and applications through training, education and stakeholder participation. Partnerships between the Mekelle University, Mekelle City Water Administration and Colorado State University will foster in open source geospatial sciences, develop high-priority local and regional geospatial datasets, and greatly improve data accessibility by a wide variety of end-users.
