AGILE-GISS AGILE: GIScience Series AGILE-GISS AGILE GIScience Ser. 2700-8150 Copernicus Publications Göttingen, Germany 10.5194/agile-giss-7-42-2026 Turning Geospatial Data into Planning Decisions: Evaluating a Participatory Accessibility Model for Urban Drinking Water Shonowo Oluwatimilehin Adenike 1 Du Xingyi 1 Pajarito Grajales Diego https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9458-7436 1 Hafner Sebastian https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3560-638X 1 Porto de Albuquerque Joao https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3160-3168 1 Zhao Qunshan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5549-9457 1 Elias Peter 2 Baruwa Kehinde 2 Odulana Oluwatoyin 2 Saad Sabitu 3 Amole Taiwo G. 4 Olusegun Solomon Abioye 5 Fernandez-Marquez Jose Luis 6 Urban Big Data Centre, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom Department of Geography, University of Lagos, Lagos, Nigeria Science Department, School of Continuing Education, Bayero University Kano, Kano, Nigeria Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital, Bayero University Kano, Kano, Nigeria DonateWater Youths Climate Action Foundation, Lagos, Nigeria University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland 10 06 2026 7 42 Copyright: © 2026 Oluwatimilehin Adenike Shonowo et al. 2026 This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this licence, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This article is available from https://agile-giss.copernicus.org/articles/7/42/2026/agile-giss-7-42-2026.html The full text article is available as a PDF file from https://agile-giss.copernicus.org/articles/7/42/2026/agile-giss-7-42-2026.pdf

Spatial accessibility models are widely used in infrastructure planning, yet quantitative evaluation against lived access conditions remains rare. This study implements a quality-weighted E2SFCA model of drinking water access in Kano and Lagos, Nigeria, and evaluates grid-level predictions against participatory validation data. Results show limited overall agreement (macro F1: 0.20–0.23) and context-dependent class bias. Severe deprivation is over-detected in Kano but under-identified in Lagos. Findings highlight the necessity of participatory validation when translating geospatial accessibility modelling into defensible planning interpretation.