Strengthening Aquatic Food Systems with Decision Support Tools: Evidence from Ghana and Myanmar

Akpoti, Komlavi; Zwart, Sander J.; Win, S.; Buisson, Marie-Charlotte

Strengthening Aquatic Food Systems with Decision Support Tools: Evidence from Ghana and Myanmar

Autores

Akpoti, Komlavi

Zwart, Sander J.

Win, S.

Buisson, Marie-Charlotte

Editor

International Water Management Institute

Descripción

Aquatic food systems in low- and middle-income countries face mounting pressures from climate variability, population growth, and competition for land and water resources. Decision-makers in these contexts frequently lack spatially explicit, integrated data to guide aquaculture planning and investment. This technical brief presents two Decision Support Tool (DST) ecosystems developed by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) under the CGIAR Sustainable Animal and Aquatic Foods (SAAF) Program: Ghana's Small Reservoir Decision Support System and Myanmar's Aqua-DST. Ghana's DST integrates Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, drying-risk classification, multi-criteria aquaculture suitability analysis, and an interactive dashboard to support planning across 2000 small reservoirs in northern Ghana. Pilot applications supported youth-led cage aquaculture in the Northeast Region, validating DST outputs and generating livelihood opportunities for young cooperatives. Myanmar's Aqua-DST applies a multi-criteria evaluation framework, combining climate hazard, biophysical, socio-economic, and management indicators to produce township-level suitability maps across 170 townships in Upper Myanmar. The tool was formally adopted by the Department of Fisheries following capacity-building workshops that trained over 130 government officials, university partners, and civil society actors. Comparative analysis across both systems reveals shared design principles: co-creation with end-users, integration of Earth observation and spatial modelling, dashboard-based dissemination, and institutional embedding as preconditions for long-term sustainability. Together, these experiences demonstrate that context-specific, yet methodologically aligned DSTs can substantially improve planning, investment targeting, and climate resilience in aquatic food systems.