Colombian authority CVC launches Hermana platform to optimize water availability

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Dashboard shows a three-day prediction of water flows (top left), map of monitoring locations, water levels in reservoirs and critical water flows

Realtime data

CVC is a decentralised environmental management authority faced with a high water demand and challenged to ensure that the available water is optimally shared among all users.

Data and information about water resources is of course available at CVC, but it is diffuse. With the introduction of the Herramienta para el Manejo integral del Agua (HERMANA) platform all data is collected in one database that provides insight into current and forecast demand and the availability of water.

Three products

During the first step of the HERMANA implementation, the Dutch Water Authorities and Deltares worked together with CVC to identify the various decision-making processes and related need for information. 

After this participatory process, the HERMANA platform was implemented by smartly connecting the following three existing products:

• Deltares FEWS Colombia system, which provides access to all relevant weather and water information, models and forecasts from CVC and Colombia’s national hydrology and meteorology service (IDEAM);
• FutureWater’s InfoSequía tool, which provides satellite information-based drought indicators for the entire area;
• HydroLogic’s HydroNET system, which combines the information from InfoSequía and Delft FEWS Colombia with local knowledge and data from CVC and generates personalised online dashboards and reports tailored to CVC’s information needs. 

Examples include a dashboard showing the water availability for the city of Cali, flood forecasts for the River Cauca and a drought dashboard for the CVC area.

Waterconnect initiative

The development of HERMANA has been supported by Waterconnect, a Dutch public-private partnership by research institute Deltares and hydroinformatics company HydroLogic. By combining forces the consortium helps water managers around the world to set up online, integrated decision-support systems. 

HERMANA has financially been supported with a grant from the Partners for Water programme by Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and an investment by CVC and contributions from Deltares, HydroLogic, FutureWater and the Dutch Water Authorities.