Ghana's open environmental dataset

Waste & Sanitation

• Where are dump sites and waste accumulation points?
• Where are blocked drains and choked gutters?
• Where are areas of open defecation?

Water Supply

• Which communities depend on streams, rivers, or unsafe water sources?
• Which boreholes are functional, and which are broken or seasonal?
• Which schools and clinics lack reliable water supply?

Education Facilities

• Which schools have toilets, and which do not?
• Which schools lack handwashing facilities?
• Which schools are overcrowded or lack classrooms and basic equipment?

Health Services

• Which communities are far from the nearest clinic or hospital?
• Which facilities are closed, understaffed, or under-equipped?
• Which facilities lack water, electricity, or sanitation?

Roads, Transport & Mobility

• Which roads are impassable during the rainy season?
• Which settlements become cut off during floods?
• Where are dangerous intersections and crash hotspots?

Drainage, Flooding & Environmental Risks

• Where do communities flood?
• Which homes, schools, clinics, and markets flood repeatedly?
• Where are wetlands and waterways being encroached upon?

Energy & Public Lighting

• Where is there no street lighting?
• Which neighbourhoods lack electricity access?
• Which streetlights are installed but not working?

Land Use & Settlement Conditions

• Where are informal settlements expanding?
• Where are structures built on waterways, road reserves, or public land?
• Which areas have no updated land use records?

Public Services & Community Infrastructure

• Where are markets, community centres, police posts, and emergency response points?
• Which public facilities exist on paper but are not functioning in reality?
• Which facilities need urgent repair, rehabilitation, or replacement?

Infrastructure Condition & Service Quality

• What is the physical condition of roads, drains, schools, toilets, clinics, and water points?
• How often do boreholes break down?
• How reliable is pipe-borne water delivery?
• How often is waste collected in each area?
• How often do power outages occur in specific neighbourhoods?
• What is the capacity of drainage systems compared to actual runoff?

Accessibility & Travel Time

• How long does it take residents to walk to the nearest school, clinic, market, or water source?
• Which neighbourhoods are beyond acceptable travel time to health care?
• Which roads become inaccessible seasonally?
• How long does it take emergency services to reach flood-prone communities?
• Which areas are underserved when travel time, not just distance, is considered?

Usage & Demand Patterns

• How many people use each borehole, clinic, school, or toilet facility?
• Which roads carry the most traffic at different times of day?
• Which waste sites receive the highest waste volumes?
• Which schools are over capacity compared to enrolment?
• Which clinics experience the highest patient loads?

Population–Service Relationships

• Which areas have the highest population relative to available services?
• Which settlements have rapid population growth but no matching infrastructure growth?
• What is the ratio of toilets, classrooms, nurses, or water points to population?
• Which communities have the highest unmet service demand?

Seasonal & Recurring Problem Data

• Which roads consistently fail during rainy seasons?
• Which communities flood every year, and how often?
• Which water points dry up seasonally?
• Where do disease outbreaks rise during certain seasons?
• Which drainage channels overflow repeatedly?

Land & Development Dynamics

• Where is settlement expansion happening fastest?
• Which agricultural lands are being converted to housing?
• Where is informal construction increasing?
• Which zones are under pressure from rapid urban growth?
• Where are encroachments becoming more frequent?

Social & Vulnerability Profiling

• Which neighbourhoods have high concentrations of low-income households?
• Which communities contain many elderly residents, children, or persons with disabilities?
• Which areas combine several disadvantages at once, flood exposure, poor sanitation, long travel times, and weak services?
• Which areas are socially vulnerable even if they are not physically remote?

Predictive Risk Modelling

• Which communities are most likely to flood under different rainfall scenarios?
• Which roads are most likely to fail in future rainy seasons?
• Which areas are at greatest risk of future disease outbreaks linked to water and sanitation?
• Which informal settlements are most likely to expand into hazardous land?
• Which neighbourhoods are most vulnerable to climate-related shocks?

Suitability & Scenario Analysis

• Which lands are most suitable for future housing development?
• Which locations are best for new clinics, schools, transfer stations, or public toilets?
• Which routes would be most efficient for waste collection expansion?
• Where should drainage investment happen first for greatest impact?
• What happens if the city expands in one direction instead of another?

Network & Systems Analysis

• How efficiently does the road network connect communities to jobs and services?
• Where are the critical failure points in water, electricity, drainage, or transport systems?
• Which infrastructure upgrades would benefit the highest number of people?
• How do failures in one service affect others, such as flooding damaging roads and blocking clinic access?

Real-Time & Near-Real-Time Monitoring

• Live flood level monitoring in high-risk drainage zones
• Sensor-based water point and borehole monitoring
• Smart waste collection tracking and route optimisation
• Real-time infrastructure fault reporting from communities
• Ongoing monitoring of air quality, heat exposure, or pollution

Investment Prioritisation & Cost–Impact Analysis

• Which intervention gives the greatest benefit per cedi spent?
• Which communities should be prioritised first for roads, drainage, or water?
• What is the estimated cost of closing service gaps by district or neighbourhood?
• Which projects provide the highest reduction in vulnerability?
• Where can limited budgets achieve the greatest public health or mobility gains?

Urban Growth Forecasting

• Where will settlement growth likely occur in the next 5–10 years?
• Which peri-urban areas are likely to urbanise rapidly?
• Where will future demand for schools, clinics, roads, and water be highest?
• Which environmental assets are most at risk from urban expansion?

Integrated Decision-Support

• Combining land use, flood risk, poverty, infrastructure, mobility, and demographic data into one planning model
• Creating service gap indices by community and district
• Creating urban vulnerability and deprivation maps
• Building dashboards for District Assemblies, NGOs, and ministries
• Using multi-criteria analysis to decide where to invest first