Geo-Location and Remote Detection of Dams and Reservoirs in the Nile Basin Tender

Procurement Summary

Country : USA

Summary : Geo-Location and Remote Detection of Dams and Reservoirs in the Nile Basin

Deadline : 07 Dec 2021

Other Information

Notice Type : Tender

TOT Ref.No.: 60193628

Document Ref. No. : 1277816

Competition : ICB

Financier : World Bank (WB)

Purchaser Ownership : -

Tender Value : Refer Document

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Tender Details

Expression of Interest are invited for Geo-Location and Remote Detection of Dams and Reservoirs in the Nile Basin.

With over 58, 000 large dams worldwide, dam safety is a major and growing global concern. In a changing climate, dam safety and security are no longer just an issue of aging infrastructure but also of intensifying water disasters and appropriate operation and maintenance of dam facilities for many countries irrespective of their economic level.

In the countries of the Nile Basin, there is a critical need for improved approaches to dam safety in policy, planning and design and during dam operation - given the multitude of conditions that have altered the likelihood and potential consequences of dam failure, such as increased hydrologic variability, growth of communities in downstream areas of dams, proliferation of new dams in some parts of the basin, and aging of dams. The vast majority of dams in the basin are embankment dams, which are more susceptible to failure by overtopping during flood events and given the number of dams and people in the basin, one failure could result in a cascade of failures with disastrous consequences. Recent examples of flood-induced dam failure include the July 2020 failure of Bout Dam in Sudan, triggered by heavy rainfall and flash flooding. In 2018, a privately-owned dam in western Kenya failed after heavy rains, claiming the lives of nearly 50 people. In Tanzania, multiple dam failures have been reported over the years.

Having an accurate, up-to-date, georeferenced inventory of dams is one of the key foundations of effective dam safety risk identification and management. It influences the type of regulatory framework needed and will inform future dam development from the perspective of how to optimize benefits such as flood control. It will also paint a complete picture of the dam safety risks associated with other surrounding dam infrastructure. Related flood risk prediction tools and investment identification efforts to clarify where flood risk mitigation measures are needed can leverage the information provided in the inventory on dam distribution.

Under the Nile Cooperation for Climate Resilience, a recipient-executed project, the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) in coordination with its Member Countries will undertake a basin-wide survey to develop an inventory of dams and accompanying information system. This task is led by the Nile Equatorial Lakes Subsidiary Action Program (NELSAP) with support from the Eastern Nile Technical Regional Office (ENTRO), working closely with the national governments through the Council of Ministers and Technical Advisory Committee. The final product will either be hosted by NELSAP or by the NBI Secretariat.

As a complement to this recipient-executed program, the World Bank seeks to introduce innovative Earth Observation tools, which would help the NBI to validate existing data and identify potentially unknown or undocumented dams, including small dams that could be verified under the recipient-executed task as well as estimate downstream populations at risk. This is very important given the existence of private, unpermitted dams, which may pose dam safety risks. While there is virtually no information on small dams in several Nile Basin countries, it is expected that detection of unknown dams will be particularly valuable in countries with large portfolios of dams, where this is a known issue.

This work would serve as an example of how to utilize remote detection methods for dams and reservoirs in World Bank-supported operations, where incomplete information on dams hinders efforts on hydroclimatic risk management, basin planning and investment prioritization. This work will also provide inputs to another ongoing global analytic activity to develop a standardized approach to remote detection and geolocation of dams and reservoirs. It is anticipated that this work would inform future support for dam detection in several client countries and transboundary river basins.

The consultancy services for this assignment will involve developing a methodology to identify dams and reservoirs using satellites and machine learning techniques and applying that method to the Nile Basin with particular attention to select countries with larger portfolios of dams, including potentially small and previously unregistered dams to demonstrate the usefulness of such techniques in similar contexts. The assignment will also involve the estimation of downstream populations at risk.

The assignment is likely to start in January 2022, and the total time available to complete the assignment would be around 10 months.

Publication Date: 22-Nov-2021
Expression of Interest Deadline: 07-Dec-2021 at 11:59:59 PM (Eastern Time - Washington D.C.).

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