Lawuna helps detect and monitor macro-pollutants on the shores of freshwater bodies using real-time drone and smartphone imagery. The goal of this project is to establish a freshwater contaminant monitoring system and empower communities with rich, open environmental data while restoring freshwater bodies from extreme damage caused by excessive danges of macro-pollutants.
Lake Victoria in Uganda which is currently the project case study is the second biggest freshwater body in the world. It is a critical presence in the local ecosystem, with over 40 million people and a countless array of species reliant on its existence. Yet its survival is at stake. Industry polluters, people, and climate change cause significant damage to Victoria’s health, and conservationists fear catastrophe is nearing certainty, the need for an urgent real-time solution is necessary as we conserve and restore its heritage. According to Sodzo Foundation official website, it takes five hundred to one thousand years for plastics to degrade, with the availability of Lawuna in our communities we can be in position to identify areas with high volumes of macro-pollutants and find mitigation and restoration measures to save our water bodies. In a broken world that requires restoration and settings, we need real-time solutions that put human life, conservation and openness at the centre of their development and LAWUNA helps to achieve those set objectives. We will never know the worth of water until the well is dry - Thomas Fuller.
At a time when the world’s water is running scarce, this is critical work to save and restore freshwater bodies from becoming acidic with increasing temperatures causing plastics to shade chemicals in the water. Thus, leading to mass death of fish and other related diseases including cancer.