The World Bank has launched an innovation challenge to develop big data solutions to strengthen climate change resilience, including global water issues.

Launching the challenge, the World Bank said a shift to climate-resilient economies could only take place if the millions of decisions which are made across the globe on a daily basis are taking climate change factors and effects into account. More data has been generated in the past two years alone in the form of big data than in all of the previous years combined.

However, the Bank says the ability to use data in development policy and decision-making processes has not seen the same progress and new solutions and analytical methodologies to use big data effectively are needed to help inform climate-sensitive decisions across the globe.

The Bank is now inviting individuals and organisations to help identify and develop big data solutions which can help better understand the impacts of climate change, address its connected issues and positively influence decisions.

The global call to find big data solutions that address issues relate to two critical challenge areas:

• Food: food security and nutrition
• Landscapes: forestry and watersheds

On water, the Bank says over 1.4 billion people currently live in river basins where the use of water exceeds minimum recharge levels, leading to the desiccation of rivers and the depletion of groundwater. By 2025, it is estimated that two out of three people will live in a water-stressed area.

Climate change is expected to impact stream flows and increase forest degradation, which in turn affect water quality as a response to erosion and nutrient pollution. Drought, arguably the biggest single threat from climate change, is a global threat.

As agriculture is the most significant user of water, and water is the most critical input for crops, threats to water supplies pose serious risks to the poor

The Bank says that despite the fact that water basins are such a critical resource, not enough is known about them, describing the gap in knowledge of hydrologic systems and their impacts as “large and universal.” And while technological advances are increasing knowledge and management of water usage in the urban and agricultural environments, there is significant opportunity to apply data and technology to better understand water basins

The judging process includes the following equally weighted criteria:

• Practicality of use, impact and potential for scale - Demonstration of the potential of the big data solution to use data to transform the solution context.
• Technically feasible - The big data solution is technically viable and has a working prototype to further show the functionality and usability.
• Relevance to challenge focus areas - The applicant shows that he/she understands the specific context of the challenge statement to which they are applying and their solution’s potential within that context.
• Innovativeness - Creativity and originality of the idea compared to solutions that are currently in use.
• Team (background, capabilities) - The applicant has the applicable technical background and the capability to take this big data solution to the next phase of implementation.

Examples cited by the Bank of technologies and methodologies that represent relevant solutions include:

• Artificial intelligence
• Analytical methodologies
• Crowdsourcing applications 
• Data science
• Dynamic visualizations
• Machine learning
• Predictive analytics on existing datasets or through matching of datasets to generate insights, information or new data
• Software applications that allow the capture and management of data
• Hardware applications that generate and capture agriculture, water or weather data

For more information about the World Bank Big Data Innovation Challenge click here

As part of its Big Data Innovation Challenge the Bank has published a Handbook setting out in more detail the scope of the potential  issues where solutions are needed- click here to download