Getting started Scenario Violating access to water | Should we use digital data? RESEARCH QUESTION: Aerial photos alongside rivers in a specific region In country X there are high levels of malnutrition show what appear to be physical barriers to accessing water. As the main source of water for the local population, you are concerned that the company is violating the water access rights of locals. The population living along the rivers tends to be poorer, though most have mobile phones. You would like to send out an SMS survey to ask if and where their access is being limited, but the population has been the target of a lot of development work in recent years and, you have heard, is suffering somewhat from survey fatigue. Your NGO is young and has limited resources. What do you do? Even though the SMS survey will enable you to reach your target population, the context may prevent you from getting responses. Given that (1) you are targeting a poorer population with survey fatigue, (2) you will have to ask each respondent to pay for the texts herself or himself, and (3) your NGO has very little name recognition, you realise this might be an uphill battle. You decide to ask a colleague at a well-established NGO to introduce you to a community leader so that you can explain your project, ask for the community’s input in designing the survey, and figure out how to feed the information on your Is FPower responsible for the pollution of the water supply? amongst low income children due to dysentery. There are also a lot of commercial ower farming operations located close to rivers throughout the country. The majority of the farms are owned by one conglomerate company; FPower. The Board of FPower has two members who are directly related to government ministers. ACCESS-TO-WATER VIOLATIONS TYPES OF POTENTIAL DATA NATIONAL HEALTH STATISTICS PHOTOGRAPHS OR SATELLITE IMAGESa INTERNET SEARCH/ DATA/ ANALYTICS BUDGETARY DATAb BUSINESS LOCATION AND OPERATIONS INFORMATION SMS SURVEY ABOUT CALORIE CONSUMPTION SERVICE DELIVERY DATAc WATER POLLUTION ANALYSIS OVERLAP OF GEO AND TEMPORAL DATA evolving project back to the community. a Time lapse or geospatial. b Government spending on nutrition programs. c Government or humanitarian agencies. 18