Freshwater Assets Decision Support System (FWADSS) maps relative state of freshwater ecosystems disturbance to assist conservation priorities in northern Africa and western Asian countries.
FWADSS's work is a direct response to the Freshwater Challenge initiative FWC. FWC aims to to revitalize and safeguard water sources by putting 300,000 km of degraded rivers and 350 million hectares of degraded wetlands under restoration by 2030.
FWADSS's framework provides an accessible assessment solution that directly meets the calls for sustainable development targets outlined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):
- 💧 SDG 6: Clean Water and Sanitation
- 🏙️ SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities
- 📉 SDG 13: Climate Action
- 🌱 SDG 15: Life on Land
GEE-based, Freshwater Assets Decision Support System (FWADSS) application.
The FWADSS system operates across three distinct layers, moving sequentially from data sourcing to final user interaction:
This layer acts as the foundational data source for the system and includes:
- 🗺️ Feature Collection (Vector Data): Specific localized geographical assets like oases, lakes, streams, mangroves, and Ramsar wetland sites.
- 🛰️ Image Collection (Raster Data): Satellite-derived Land Use/Land Cover datasets (such as Dynamic World) to observe physical surface changes.
- 📍 User Input AOI: Allows users to define their specific Area of Interest (AOI) by selecting a country boundary, drawing manually on a map, or uploading a GeoJSON file.
This central engine manages how the ingested data is manipulated through three sequential stages:
- 🎛️ Pre-processing Inputs: The system sets up user-defined parameters, including the selection of two distinct time periods to compare, asset layer selection, and setting specific weights for land cover naturalness index (LCN). The LCN index describes the state and trend of land use/land cover (LULC) within the AOI, according to the amount of human-induced transformation present.
- 🔄 Processing (Change Detection): The server executes core computations, including water/wetland extraction, feature filtering, prioritized masking (e.g., masking Ramsar sites over lakes), area statistics calculation, and final LCN computation.
- 📊 Post-processing: The calculated data is structured into analytical components, preparing statistical metrics, tables, charts, and final geographic export files (such as Shapefiles or GeoTIFFs).
This is the front-end dashboard that interactive users engage with directly:
- 🔲 Main Application Layout: Features a control panel on the left for adjusting parameters, a central Map Viewer with a swipe tool to visually compare Period 1 against Period 2, and a summary Results Panel on the right.
- 🔍 Analysis Tools: Features integrated sub-modules like a Results Dashboard, an Inspector Tool for localized point-and-click analysis, and a Legend/Layer toggle control.
- 💾 Data Exportation: Provides users with actionable final deliverables, letting them download charts, CSV tables, interactable web map links, or GIS-ready Shapefiles.
FWADSS framework architectural workflow.
The Freshwater Assets Decision Support System (FWADSS) can be easily accessed at:
It’s a great idea for platform users to check out the FWADSS manual—it’s packed with all the info you need to know about what it can do!
Bejagam, V., and I.N. Mohammed (2026), Freshwater Ecosystems Relative Disturbance to Identify Key Conservation Priorities in Water-stressed Countries. TBA, (In Review)
Vijaykumar Bejagam 
Ibrahim Mohammed