Presentation at Aguas 2009, November 2009, Cali, Colombia. Mark Mulligan.

1. Presentación de productos del Proyecto
Focal de Cuencas de Los Andes
Mark Mulligan and Jorge Rubiano
[30 mins]

2. BFPANDES : Outputs
1. Capacity built in local students (UG, MSc, PhD), institutions/
stakeholders (and in us!) through training, workshops, tools,
dissemination
2. Freely available report, maps and baseline data diagnosing current
status of water poverty, water productivity, environmental security
and their social and institutional context along with likely future
impacts (http://www.bfpandes.org). Incl. poverty, institutions,
interventions, water avail and water productivity+lessons in
knowledge needs and knowledge management.
3. The AguAAndes Policy Support System – a simple, accessible web
based tool for understanding the likely impact of particular
scenarios of change and policy options on water and water poverty
in detail in any Andean catchment . Batteries included! -all data
supplied. No silver bullet but a start.

3. WP5 What do water policy makers in the
region need?
Questionnaire of 80 water professionals from 7 Andean countries. Of
the respondents: 46% were development workers, 26% scientists,
21% as students, and 9% public sector employees.
1. Highest priority in Andean watersheds is soil erosion (71%),
2. 44% said that the effects of soil erosion on agricultural
livelihoods should be considered more in the policy making
process ,
3. 48% said reform in the institutional approach regarding the
management of water resources is important,
4. 66% of respondents observed that equality of access to water is
important,
5. 58% said the implementation of Payment for Environmental
Services is a priority.

4. How can we help? Questionnaire of 80 water professionals from 7
Andean countries
Q. In your experience which phrase best describes the use of
scientific data/informatiopn in policy formulation in the Andes?
A. Data are not used (46%), spatial analysis and modelling are
encouraging wider use, decisions are taken using local or expert
knowledge
Q. What are the reasons for the low uptake of policy support tools
such as for example SWAT in the Andes?
A. Lack of knowledge of them, lack of or expensive data, lack of
training/capacity
Q. What are the most important factors for successful use of PSS?
A. Availability of good data, level of detail
see www.bfpandes.org

5. Problems with existing data:
Either:
Not existing
Or:
Not available
Or:
Not found
Or:
Too expensive/specialist
Or:
Unusable
Needs:
Available
No cost
Consistent
Detailed
Easy to use and manage
Processed and dynamic to
generate knowledge
...data and
information/knowledge
products

6. Problems with existing PSS Solutions in simTerra based PSS
(e.g.: (e.g. :
:
1. Complex, require training 1. Simple policy analyst interface
2. Data not available, not 2. All data provided for entire
detailed or expensive to model domain at two levels of
obtain detail (1ha and 1km) (i.e.
batteries included!)
3. Require significant local data
handling (GIS) capacity 3. No GIS capacity required
4. Not applicable in data scarce 4. Applicable in any data
environments environment
5. Not developed for mountain 5. Developed specifically for
environments tropical mountain environments

7. The AguaAndes PSS
It is different things to different people. The interface changes
for scientists (detailed, shown), policy makers (less detailed)

8. Multilingual.

9. Scientist, English

10. Policy analyst, Spanish.

11. Interfaces with geobrowsers like Google maps....

12. ...and an embedded Google Earth

13. Shows the system being modelled...

14. ...with links to the subsystems (this is hydrology)...

15. ...and from there to the relevant part of the documentation (not yet
finished!)

16. You start by defining the area you want support for. The SimTerra
database has 1 degree raster tiles (@100m resolution, shown) and 10
degree tiles at 1km resolution)

17. The data are downloaded to your workspace on our servers (since
AguaAndes runs on our servers not your local computer). Links are
provided so that you can download any data which are not
copyrighted or you can view the data in situ.

18. http://www.policysupport.org/links/aguaandes
Simulations produce a range of outputs that can be downloaded as
ARCASCII grids for GIS analysis or visualised online

19. This is 1km rainfall for your tile from the SimTerra database.
System allows some in-situ analysis, changing of colour scales etc and
visualisation in GE and GM as well as download as zipped ARCASCII

20. ...geobrowsed in Google Maps

21. ...geobrowsed in Google Earth

22. You can then choose from a set of policy options to implement

23. ...along with climatic or other scenarios (futures)

24. You can then run the simulation

25. Time series of simulation outputs can be viewed during or after a
simulation

26. Spatial simulation outputs can be viewed during or after a simulation

27. ...and can be visualised in a geobrowser
e.g. Percentage of runoff derived from fog (N Colombia and Panama)

28. Some parts of the PSS still to be completed
Development finishes in March 2010
2-3 simple case studies from this group
Available at
http://www.policysupport.org/links/aguaandes
Thank you

30. If you are logged in as a scientist you then access the simulation parameters which can be edited
(collaboratively) in a Google spreadsheet (which AguaAndes then reads)

31. The SimTerra PSS framework and the AguaAndes PSS
SIMTERRA
User-base: expert
knowledge (YOU )
SIMTERRA
FRAMEWORK (Web and
geo-browser based user
interface)
SIMTERRA SIMTERRA
FRAMEWORK FIESTA, PATTERN... DATABASE
(collection of tools (>2TB of global data
for analysis and at 1km and 1ha resolution)
Modelling)
AGUA-ANDES

32. These are 3-hourly gridded rainfall series for
your tile from www.kcl.ac.uk/geodata