QGIS WASH Facility Mapping and Service Coverage Analysis Training Course

Course overview

WASH teams need reliable maps to show where water points, sanitation facilities, hygiene services and critical infrastructure are located, what condition they are in, and which communities remain underserved. Yet field data often arrives in separate spreadsheets, GPS files and survey platforms with inconsistent facility IDs, missing coordinates and unclear administrative boundaries. This makes it difficult to verify coverage claims, prioritise rehabilitation, plan equitable service expansion or present defensible evidence to donors, local authorities and cluster partners.

This five-day QGIS course teaches participants to build an auditable WASH facility geodatabase and turn it into operational coverage analysis. Participants import and clean water, sanitation and population data; manage coordinate reference systems; digitise facilities and service areas; join monitoring records to mapped assets; and create maps that distinguish functionality, technology type, management arrangements and service level. They apply buffers, proximity analysis, spatial joins, population overlays and disaggregation by administrative unit to identify communities beyond agreed access thresholds and facilities requiring follow-up.

Training combines short instructor demonstrations with guided work in QGIS using a realistic humanitarian WASH dataset. Participants work through the complete workflow from raw KoboToolbox-style survey exports to map layouts and decision-ready summaries. Each participant leaves with a structured QGIS project, cleaned facility and population layers, a documented service-coverage analysis workflow, and a set of printable or shareable maps suitable for a programme review, needs assessment or partner coordination meeting.

The course is designed for WASH programme staff, GIS focal points, MEAL personnel and technical officers who need to produce credible spatial evidence without relying on a specialist GIS unit for every map or coverage question.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Configure a QGIS project with appropriate coordinate reference systems, base maps and administrative boundary layers
• Import, inspect and clean WASH facility data from CSV, Excel, GPS and KoboToolbox-style survey exports
• Create a structured WASH facility geodatabase using consistent IDs, domains, attribute fields and metadata
• Digitise water points, sanitation facilities, settlements and service-area features from imagery and field references
• Join functionality, water-quality, management and monitoring records to mapped facility assets
• Calculate water and sanitation service coverage using buffers, spatial joins, population layers and administrative summaries
• Identify underserved settlements and priority facilities through proximity, functionality and disaggregated access analysis
• Produce decision-ready map layouts and an analysis package documenting assumptions, sources and coverage results

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• WASH Programme Officers — who need evidence to target water and sanitation investments
• WASH Engineers and Technical Officers — who plan facility rehabilitation, expansion and maintenance activities
• GIS Officers and Information Management Officers — who support operational mapping and spatial data quality
• MEAL Officers — who must verify service indicators and report geographically disaggregated results
• Humanitarian Assessment Officers — who map needs, facilities and gaps during rapid or multi-sector assessments
• Government Water and Sanitation Planners — who coordinate facility inventories and local service coverage plans

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course. Participants should be comfortable using a Windows, macOS or Linux laptop, managing files and folders, and working with basic spreadsheet tables such as Excel or CSV. Familiarity with WASH concepts such as water points, sanitation facilities, functionality status, catchment or service area, and administrative boundaries is helpful. No previous QGIS, programming, database administration or advanced GIS experience is required. Complete beginners should expect to spend the first day learning the QGIS interface, spatial data types, coordinates and map-layer management before progressing to analysis.

Training methodology

The instructor demonstrates each QGIS workflow against a realistic WASH programme scenario, then participants complete the same task on supplied facility, settlement, population and monitoring datasets. Hands-on labs cover data cleaning, georeferencing, digitising, joins, buffers, spatial queries and map design. Small groups compare alternative access thresholds and discuss how functionality, seasonality and population uncertainty affect coverage claims. Daily review clinics address data-quality decisions, and the final session includes an application-planning workshop in which participants adapt the workflow to their own programme data and reporting cycle.

Course outline

Day 1: QGIS foundations for WASH spatial data

• QGIS interface, Browser panel, Layers panel and Processing Toolbox navigation
• Vector, raster, tabular and web-map data relevant to WASH programmes
• Coordinate reference systems, latitude-longitude coordinates and projected distance measurements
• Loading administrative boundaries, settlements, roads and satellite basemaps
• Inspecting attribute tables, feature geometry and data-source properties
• Importing CSV and Excel facility registers with coordinate fields
• Initial checks for duplicate IDs, null coordinates and implausible facility locations

Workshop: Participants create a QGIS project and import a raw water-point register, producing a first mapped facility inventory with documented coordinate checks.

Day 2: Building and maintaining WASH facility datasets

• Designing facility IDs, attribute schemas and controlled value lists
• Creating GeoPackage layers for water points, sanitation facilities and settlements
• Cleaning categorical fields with QGIS field calculator and refactor fields tools
• Geocoding and correcting missing or invalid facility coordinates
• Digitising facilities, institutional sanitation blocks and settlement polygons
• Editing geometry, snapping features and applying topology checks
• Capturing metadata, source dates, survey versions and data-quality flags

Workshop: Participants convert mixed survey and spreadsheet records into a cleaned GeoPackage facility database with standardised attributes and metadata.

Day 3: Functionality, service levels and WASH mapping

• Joining monitoring records to facility layers using unique asset identifiers
• Classifying functionality, technology type, water source and management arrangements
• Mapping sanitation facility categories and institutional WASH indicators
• Using rule-based symbology for functional, partially functional and non-functional assets
• Filtering and querying facilities for maintenance, water-quality and protection risks
• Calculating derived fields for downtime, user estimates and inspection recency
• Creating thematic maps for programme monitoring and coordination discussions

Workshop: Participants join inspection data to the facility inventory and produce a functionality map identifying water points requiring technical follow-up.

Day 4: Service coverage and gap analysis

• Defining access assumptions, distance thresholds and limitations of buffer-based coverage
• Creating service-area buffers around water points and sanitation facilities
• Intersecting settlement and population layers with facility service areas
• Using spatial joins to summarise served and unserved population estimates
• Analysing nearest-facility distance with distance-to-nearest-hub methods
• Aggregating coverage indicators by ward, district and programme catchment
• Identifying priority gaps using functionality, population exposure and access criteria

Workshop: Participants produce a settlement-level service-gap layer and a district coverage table that ranks priority locations for intervention.

Day 5: Decision-ready outputs and operational application

• Validating analysis results against field knowledge and source-data limitations
• Using map layouts, legends, scale bars, north arrows and annotation appropriately
• Designing accessible symbology and map narratives for non-GIS decision-makers
• Exporting print maps, PDF briefing products and high-resolution image outputs
• Packaging QGIS projects, GeoPackages and supporting documentation for handover
• Creating repeatable processing models for routine facility coverage updates
• Planning an organisational workflow for data collection, quality assurance and map approval

Workshop: Participants complete a WASH coverage briefing pack comprising a final map layout, priority-gap table, documented assumptions and an update plan for their own context.

Tools & standards covered

QGIS, QField, KoboToolbox, Sphere Handbook

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions