In early March 2025, the second phase of Water Accounting training under FAO’s Water Scarcity Program was held. The training focused on collecting and analyzing spatial data to build and simulate a water account. Participants from various governmental institutions worked with open-source datasets to compute seasonal water balances and assessed water availability and interventions in the Xe Champhone pilot basin.

A key component of the training was the use of Google Earth Engine (GEE), where participants learned how to extract and process remotely sensed precipitation, evapotranspiration, and land use data. These datasets were used to calculate the water accounting components, including inflows, outflows, demands, and unmet demands. In the program’s second half, participants were introduced to the Water Evaluation and Planning (WEAP) model, which simulates water balance and supply-demand dynamics in river basins and irrigation systems. Using a tutorial model for the Xe Champhone River Basin in Savannakhet Province, participants explored how to build and adjust scenarios to assess the potential impacts of future projections and policy or management interventions on water availability, demands, and supply. These exercises support participants in making informed, data-driven decisions.

Participants were strongly motivated to apply water accounting in their daily work, and many expressed interest in institutional follow-up. While the training exercises focused on the Xe Champhone basin, participants recognized the potential for applying water accounting approaches more broadly. This momentum can serve as a foundation for scaling up water efforts across the Lao PDR.