Predict Current Water Point Status

Predict Current
Water Point Status

Updated version available fall 2021

Overview:

This tool harnesses the power of machine learning to make predictions about the status of water points based on the past performance of similar water points in the country.

Illustrative Uses:

Predict which water points are at a higher risk of failure in order to carry out preventative maintenance
Identify high-risk water points in order to increase monitoring where it is most needed
Determine which districts have relatively more high-risk water points to more effectively match maintenance budgets with likely need

Instructions:

Select target country from the drop-down menu
Select target district(s) from the drop-down menu
Select whether you want the points on the map colored by the “Last Known Status” (when the last data was collected), or “Today’s Prediction”
Click Submit
Access data by clicking “Download Data”

Methodology:

This tool uses available WPDx attributes, such as #water_tech, #water_source, #pay, and others as training data for developing a classification machine learning model. The target variable is #status_id. The models are tuned to optimize the precision (percent of water points that are actually broken) and the recall (percent of all broken water points that are identified as high risk). Predictions are based on adjusting calculating the age of each water point based on #install_year and the current year. A priority for each water point (high/medium/low) is assigned based on the relative number of water points within 1 kilometer and the population within 1 kilometer.

Limitations:

Like all predictions, these predictions are based on probabilities and may not reflect the reality of the status of water points at a given point in time.