Participants

Eduardo Chaparro. The National Association of Businessmen of Colombia (ANDI in Spanish)

Jaime Concha. Vice President of energy-mining-water. ANDI.

Jesús Rojas. The National Association of Businessmen of Colombia (ANDI in Spanish)

Carolina Morales. Colombian-Dutch Chamber of Commerce

Alexandra Arévalo. National Planning Department (DNP in Spanish)

Ximena Lemaitre. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería (ECI)

German Santos. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería (ECI)

Yesica Rodríguez. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería (ECI)

Héctor Angarita. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería (ECI)

Research questions were raised during the meeting

How to manage basin storage to include the level of navigation service among the exploitation objectives? for example, by:

• Operation of chains of existing hydroelectric reservoirs.

• Restoration of river-swamp and wetland connections.

• Small hydro-peaking deregulation reservoirs.

How to consider impacts of artificial storage on river geomorphology, and its effects on other uses or benefits: navigation, the productivity of ecosystems, flood risks, etc.

Analysis of benefits/impacts and risks of aquaculture practices in reservoirs.

How to consider green taxes and carbon footprint in the benefit/impact analysis of artificial storage?

Relationship of the practices of the mining sector (legal and illegal) with loss (or gain) of hydrological regulation and changes in water quality, and its relationship with other sectors, that is, hydropower, navigation, supply, etc.

The case of the River Ranchería reservoir and other examples of how institutional barriers/weaknesses prevent the implementation of multiple storage uses.

Road infrastructure and its relationship with the loss of natural regulation of the basin, for example, due to the disconnection of rivers with wetland systems and plains.

Road infrastructure and its relationship with the loss of natural regulation of the basin, for example, due to the disconnection of rivers with wetland systems and plains.

Serious games specific to regions, in the context of the formulation and implementation of POMCAS.

Planning and management considerations for artificial storage to avoid impacts on freshwater Biodiversity.

Feasibility of optimizing the strength of existing storage through integration with non-conventional renewable energy sources, for example: "pumped storage" in chains of reservoirs, using solar or wind energy as a source.

Possible research topics

Optimization of Hydraulic Resources in the current reservoir chains, taking into account the navigation conditions in the main channels of Colombia.

Proposal of mechanisms to generate work plans for the re-establishment of the natural connections between river-swamp and wetland, of the current systems of reservoir chains on the Magdalena River.

Analysis of benefits/impacts and risks of aquaculture practices in reservoirs.

Establish the parameters of mining, legal and illegal, that influence the management of hydraulic resources in a region.

Develop a possible solution to the illegal dumping of mining in tributary rivers that affect the development and management of hydraulic resources downstream of the basin.

Determine the impact of road infrastructure on water systems, such as wetlands and plains, and the correlation between them.

Planning and management considerations for artificial storage to avoid impacts on freshwater Biodiversity.

Participants

Ricardo Lozano. The National Association of Businessmen of Colombia (ANDI in Spanish)

Andrés Echavarria. The National Association of Businessmen of Colombia (ANDI in Spanish)

Jesús Rojas. Asociación The National Association of Businessmen of Colombia (ANDI in Spanish)

Gerald Corzo. UNESCO -.HE

Germán Santos. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Ximena Lemaitre. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Yesica Rodríguez. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Santiago Duarte. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Research and interest topics

Santiago Duarte developed an advanced technique for downscaling and climate change analysis, in such a way that it can support climate change studies that have already been carried out to improve them.

Ximena Lemaitre is in the development of a decision-making system, in support of a Serious Game project with TNC, which was presented to senior officials of the Colombian government ministries in collaboration with Semana magazine. In this serious game, we have a model of the Magdalena basin (which is the same model that is “under” SIMA) and a system of discussion and analysis of the knowledge behind the decisions that will make was created to take for the next 30 years.

Yesica Rodríguez recently began working with the development of index identification methodologies to better determine environmental flows with the worldwide coordinator of the S-MultiStor project, Michael McKlein.

Pontificia Universidad Javeriana with Dr. Efraín Domínguez, where the work is focused on the social part; identifying the reasons why dam projects are accepted or not, their characteristics, their consequences, and the legal aspects involved.

Additionally, it already has a project with Colciencias in which it requests support so that eventually this information can be added to the SIMA and, also, it is planning to invest some project resources in training on the system so that it can be understood and used by the Properly defined user profiles. It is also working with IDEAM through which they were found because of the SIRH to which they are making a national database with all the hydrometeorological information data.

Participants

Juliana Delgado.The Nature Conservancy - TNC

Diego Hincapié. The Nature Conservancy - TNC

Carlos Rogeliz. The Nature Conservancy - TNC

German Santos. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Yesica Rodríguez. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

José Luis Mendoza. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Ximena Lemaitre. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Task Review

Roles, Users, and entities:

TNC proposes that the classification of users should be kept as simple as possible, giving as a guideline the following distinction:

• General Users

• Administrator Users

• Developer Users

Note 1: In the training program the level of knowledge and prerequisites must be defined: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, and Developers.

Note 2: To structure the contents of each training program, it is necessary to have detailed knowledge of the system.

Note 3: The SIMA development team will be consulted (task), which due to the number of users expected to have registered, leave only user customization (welcome page), only for developers or advanced users.

Note 4: The SIMA development team will be consulted (task), which depends on the use given to the SIMA system (for example, consult reports), whether it is strictly necessary or not, to have a user registered in the system.

Classification of entities: Entities to which a user can belong, the following classification is proposed:

• Academy

• Government (ANLA, CARs)

• Private (EPM, ISAGEN)

• Researchers? (Humbolt, IDEAM)

The TNC developers did not explicitly speak of the entities that could be potential SIMA users, but the interest of ANLA, CARs, IDEAM, and associations such as ANDI is known.

User Management:

It is reported that SIMA has a module for user management.

Tools for carrying out load tests (programs and/or robots that simulate end-user transactions).

It is reported that, at present, this activity is not a priority for the SIMA development team. It must be evaluated whether, within the current contract for the Beta part of the system, these load tests would have a cavity within its scope, other options should be evaluated. These options would be separate from the S-Multistor project deliverables and would be handled as a separate project, either TNC-ECI or other identities.

Mapping between WEAP functionalities and what you are using in SIMA:

Carlos Rogeliz presents a matrix, which shows the "mapping" between the variables required by the hydrological model of WEAP and what is captured and which is transferred as parameters to the SIMA. It will be shared with the working group to know it in detail (task). It was also mentioned that the SIMA platform is not WEAP, and that for the connection with other hydrological models it was necessary to make the code read the data from the said model, and that Therefore, it is not relevant, from the TNC point of view, that the mapping of the variable paths is known.

Participants

Diego Hincapié. The Nature Conservancy - TNC

Carlos Rogeliz. The Nature Conservancy - TNC

German Santos. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Yesica Rodríguez. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Santiago Duarte. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Ximena Lemaitre. Escuela Colombiana de Ingeniería Julio Garavito - ECI

Sara Lux. The Nature Conservancy - TNC

Task Review

Content of the training modules:

The CREAGUA developers group in charge of SIMA should be consulted on the guidelines for carrying out a developer training course, in other words, compiling the guidelines (“development rules”) so that new developers can easily the new functionalities of the system. Likewise, a protocol for the development of the code must be created (task). It was also mentioned that a manual can be the possibility of training for developers.

On the other hand, regarding the proposals made by the ECI for the short training video, it was considered that the most appropriate is the MOOC option in conjunction with a series of tutorial videos that answer specific questions available on the SIMA platform. It must be defined (task) what topics should be developed in the tutorial videos and what topics through the MOOC, taking into account that in the MOOC there must be concepts related to the technical but in a simple way and that have redirection to more in-depth tutorials on said subject (scope of the MOOC) and that different MOOC-type courses could be created according to the user's profile. Also, Sara Lux proposes that (task) it would be of great help to consult with the National Forest Information System on how they carry out their training since they use a concept similar to that of MOOCs.

Platform load tests:

Contact is made with the ECI systems engineering area to think about the possibility of developing the tests as an undergraduate degree work, however, the best option to perform it should be reviewed (task).

Determination of SIMA errors:

The variable matrix is delivered with the verification of the identification visualization of the SIMA variables and the database of the variables which have errors and do not work correctly, even about 40 variables do not have a data box. Given this, Carlos Rogeliz states that the group of developers is in the process of correcting these problems; the problems should be solved. However, a prudent time will be allowed before performing the variable verification again.