High Accuracy Correlator.

Abstract not availableJRC.H-Institute for environment and sustainability (Ispra

Proceedings of the ACEWATER2 Scientific Workshop Accra (Ghana) 31 Oct – 3 Nov 2016

The African Centers of Excellence on Water (ACEWATER2) project, in its second phase (2016/19), promoted by the African Ministers of Water and financed by DG DEVCO, aims at supporting the establishment of Human Capacity Development Programme of the AMCOW (African Ministers’ Council on Water) in the Water Sector, strengthens institutional networking and improving research support to policy making by scaling up the approach of the pilot phase (phase I). The main activities of the project consist in: • Strengthening of two existing NEPAD water Centers of Excellence networks in West and Southern Africa; • Expanding the NEPAD water Centres of Excellence network to Central and Eastern Africa; • Strengthening institutional networking and improving research support to policy making in the water sector; • Supporting the implementation of the African Water Ministers’ declaration urging AUC and NEPAD Centers of Excellence to develop a “Human Capacity Development Programme for junior professional and technician level capacity challenges in the water sector”; • Developing an Atlas on Regional Water Cooperation. The project geographical scope covers three major regions: Southern Africa (7 countries), Western Africa (4 countries) and Eastern/Central Africa. The project is implemented by DG JRC (overall project management and scientific cluster) with UNESCO (human capacity development cluster). Within this project, a Workshop has been organized in Accra (Ghana) from October 31st to November 3rd, specifically devoted to the sharing among CoEs of scientific interests, competences and methods towards the effective planning of (scientific) activities, achievement and delivery of scientific tools and products to support (science-based) decision making processes. By means of scientific as well as technical presentations, round tables and participative sessions, the participants (35 people representing more than 30 Institutions among Universities, Research Centres, River Basin Authorities, Regional Economic Communities and key stakeholders on water issues, further to European research Institutions as CIRAD and CREAF) shared valuable experiences and competences, including case studies, around key thematic pillars, such as: Climate Issues (Session 1), African Water-Energy-Food nexus (Session 2), Groundwater (Session 3) and Water Governance&Diplomacy (Session 4). Workshop Proceedings gather all relevant contributions in the form of (extended) abstracts and short papers, providing a general overview of key relevant issues and partners scientific interests, turning to be a valuable resource for effective planning of next project steps.JRC.D.2-Water and Marine Resource

Summary of the Proceedings of the AquaKnow E-conference on Knowledge Management for Technical Cooperation in the Water Sector in Developing Countries

In the framework of the EC project called ¿AquaKnow¿ an e-conference was organised on knowledge management for technical cooperation in the water sector in developing countries. The e-conference was organised by DG AIDCO and DG JRC and was held in June 2008. The chairman of the conference was Dr. Jay Bhagwan, Director of the Water Use and Waste Management in the Water Research Commission in South Africa. Some 145 participants from 67 organisations active in the water sector in Africa, in Europe and in Latina America participated to this e-conference. The organisations were public, private, NGOs, research and high education institutions, etc... This e-conference was an unique event to bring together an important amount of field experiences in treating the knowledge related to the water sector in the context of technical cooperation oriented to capacity building in developing countries. This technical report resumes the many ideas put on the table and extracts some of the conclusions that were used in the design and development of the Aqua know Content Management System developed by the Water4Dev team of the IES institute of the DG JRC of the European Commission.JRC.DDG.H.3-Global environement monitorin

Bayesian networks modelling in support to cross-cutting analysis of water supply and sanitation in developing countries

Despite the efforts made towards the Millennium Goals targets during the last decade, access to improved Water Supply or basic Sanitation remains still not accessible for millions of people across the World. This paper proposes a set of models that use 25 key variables from the WatSan4Dev dataset and country profiles involving Water Supply and Sanitation (Dondeynaz et al 2012). This paper proposes the use of Bayesian Network modelling methods because adapted to the management of non-normal distribution, and integrate a qualitative approach for data analysis. They also offer the advantage to integrate preliminary knowledge into the probabilistic models. The statistical performance of the proposed models ranges between 80 and 95% which is very satisfactory taking into account the strong heterogeneity of variables. Probabilistic scenarios run from the models allow a quantification of the relationships between human development, external support, governance aspects, economic activities and Water Supply and Sanitation (WSS) access. According to models proposed in this paper, a strong poverty reduction will induce an increment of the WSS access equal to 75-76% through: 1) the organisation of on-going urbanisation process to avoid slums development; and, 2) the improvement of health care for instance for children. On one side, improving governance, such as institutional efficiency, capacities to make and apply rules or control of corruption will also have a positive impact on WSS sustainable development. The first condition for an increment of the WSS access remains of course an improvement of the economic development with an increment of household income. Moreover, a significant country environmental commitment associated with civil society freedom of expression constitutes a favourable environment for sustainable WSS services delivery. Intensive agriculture through irrigation practises also appears as a mean for sustainable WSS thanks to multi-uses and complementarities. Strong and structured agriculture sector facilitates rural development in areas where WSS access often steps behind compared to urban areas . External financial support, named Official Development Aid (ODA), plays a role in WSS improvement but comes last in the sensitivity analyses of models. This aid supports first poor countries at 47%, and is associated to governance aspects: 1) political stability and 2) country environmental commitment and civil society degree of freedom. These governance aspects constitute a good framework for aid implementation in recipient countries. Modelling is run with the five groups of countries as defined in Dondeynaz et al 2012. Models for profile 4 (essential external support) and profile 5 (primary material consumption) are specifically detailed and analysed in this paper. For countries in profile 4, to fight against water scarcity and desertification pressure should be the priority. However, for countries in profile 5, efforts should first concentrate on political stability consolidation while supporting economic activity diversification. Nevertheless, for both profiles, reduction of poverty should remain the first priority as previously indicated.JRC.H.1-Water Resource

Analysing Inter-Relationships among Water, Governance, and Human Development Variables in Developing Countries - Preliminary Results on Africa for 2004

The experience of the last 50 years of international cooperation indicates that improving the understanding of the inter-relations among different variables linked with economic and human development can be an essential baseline in the design of development cooperation policies and strategies at national, regional and continental levels. In this way, understanding the Water sector in developing countries relies on complex interactions between different environmental, socio-economic, governance and other human development factors. In this preliminary phase, this research focuses geographically on Africa. Data have been processed using the EM algorithm, hot deck imputation methods, logarithmic or square roots normalization to get a coherent dataset, baseline for performing statistical analyses. Through this first analysis, this approach and methods showed their interest and capacity to quickly bringing to results. In fact, using Principal Component Analysis and linear regression analysis, we have explained a major part of behaviour of two variables: water services access level at 70% and sanitation services access level at 53%. Main outputs are the ranking and weighting of variables according to their influence on the targeted variable. For water supply access level, the key elements are the governance aspects, in particular, the capacity of being effective in delivering services, the capacity of regulation through police, courts, property right respect¿.. and, finally, the control of the corruption in the country. For sanitation access level, the key elements are respectively education of girls far ahead the governance aspects. Concerning the latter, special attention should be taken first to the control of the corruption, then to reinforcement of governance effectiveness in delivering services and finally, the capacity of regulation of the country through police, courts, property right respect. This study allows us to move forward to more complex and detailed analysis having shown that data are enough coherent and reliable.JRC.DDG.H.3-Global environement monitorin

Assessment of Open Source GIS Software for Water Resources Management in Developing Countries

The European Commission is developing, under the responsibility of the Joint Research Centre and in close collaboration with international and national partners, the Water Knowledge Management Platform. This platform will integrate a dynamic management of different support tools and guidelines for the water management sector in developing countries. The support tools will be based on open source desktop GIS technologies in order to provide the final users in developing countries with a sustainable technology from both financial and technological points of view. In this study, a comprehensive list of several hundred open sources GIS software packages are put together by an extensive search and then screened to obtain a list of 31 packages for further consideration. Various criteria were developed to exclude 17 packages and the remaining 14 went through a series of installation and performance tests; firstly, on a six years old PC (AMD Athlon¿XP 2800+, 2.13GHz, 512MB of RAM, under MS XP). Several packages were dropped due to the general suitabilities and functionalities. Four packages (QGIS, gvSIG, MapWindow and openJUMP) performed well in map rendering of large file sizes (up to 125Mb) and were further tested on a Pentium III computer. The QGIS package outperformed others in very poor computing conditions. The gvSIG and openJUMP packages performed reasonably well but their start-up times were long, while MapWindow struggled. QGIS, gvSIG and MapWindow were recommended for the EU Water Knowledge Management Platform (WKMP).JRC.H.3-Global environement monitorin

Web Site and Knowledge Management Platform of EU Water and Energy Initiatives (EUWI - EUEI)

The EU Water and Energy Knowledge Management Platforms, respectively www.euwi.net, www.euei.net , have been developed by the JRC in the framework of an Administrative Arrangement with the DG AIDCO (EuropeAid/ENV/2007/147693/TPS). The EUWI ¿ EUEI core system was designed in a modular way, this web-based information system can easily be up-graded and up-dated at a minor cost. The system was though as re-usable and therefore EUEI ¿ EUWI websites are replications of the same core system that has been customized differently for these two thematic platforms where the interaction between an expert community is requested. In details, the use of this system allows in a general way a specialised community to work in a virtual network. EUWi/EUEI members can share information, data, documents, news, special events, meetings, establish e-conferences in a dynamic manner in order to improve the communication in the thematic community. These platforms also offer more visibility through web dissemination of the activities, results of the EU initiatives and thus facilitate involvement of additional members willing to contribute to these initiatives.JRC.DDG.H.3-Global environement monitorin

High-resolution precipitation datasets in South America and West Africa based on satellite-derived rainfall, Enhanced Vegetation Index and Digital Elevation Model

Mean Annual Precipitation is one of the most important variables used in water resource management. However, quantifying Mean Annual Precipitation at high spatial resolution, needed for advanced hydrological analysis, is challenging in developing countries which often present a sparse gauge network and a highly variable climate. In this work, we present a methodology to quantify Mean Annual Precipitation at 1 km spatial resolution using different precipitation products from satellite estimates and gauge observations at coarse spatial resolution (i.e., ranging from 4 km to 25 km). Examples of this methodology are given for South America and West Africa. We develop a downscaling method that exploits the relationship among satellite-derived rainfall, Digital Elevation Model and Enhanced Vegetation Index. At last, we validate its performance using rain gauge measurements: comparable annual precipitation estimates for both South America and West Africa are retrieved. Validation indicates that high resolution Mean Annual Precipitation downscaled from CHIRP (Climate Hazards Group Infrared Precipitation) and GPCC (Global Precipitation Climatology Centre) datasets present the best ensemble of performance statistics for both South America and West Africa. Results also highlight the potential of the presented technique to downscale satellite-derived rainfall worldwide.JRC.H.1-Water Resource

Evaluación del estado de los recursos hidrobiológicos en áreas marinas protegidas del Pacífico de Colombia

The state of the hydrobiological resources (HBR) of three Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) of the Colombian Pacific was evaluated: Utría National Natural Park (NNP), Uramba Bahía Málaga NNP and Sanquianga NNP. Four fishery indicators were used for the analysis: 1) relative abundance given as landing per Unit Effort (LPUE); 2) effort (h); 3) size (cm); and 4) percentage of individuals captured below the average size at sexual maturity (ASM). The LPUE and effort indicators obtained low ratings in the MPAs according the categories constructed in Herrera (2020), with the exception of PNN Utría. Regarding the indicators "sizes" and "percentage of individuals captured below the ASM, these presented low scores, and are closely related to the reduced sizes of capture in the areas. Given the evidence that the resources in the MPAs are in a condition that is not sustainable (PNN Uramba Bahía Málaga and PNN Sanquianga), it is necessary to advance in the establishment of management measures (minimum catch sizes, time and space closures, selectivity control of fishing gear), which result in the reduction of fishing effort and the increase of catches above the TMM of the species.Se evaluó el estado de los recursos hidrobiológicos (RHB) de tres Áreas Marinas Protegidas (AMPs) del Pacífico de Colombia: Parque Nacional Natural (PNN) Utría, PNN Uramba Bahía Málaga y PNN Sanquianga. Para el análisis se utilizaron cuatro indicadores pesqueros: 1) Abundancia relativa dada como el desembarco por unidad de esfuerzo (DPUE); 2) Esfuerzo (h); 3) Talla (cm); y 4) Porcentaje de individuos capturados por debajo de la talla media de madurez sexual (TMM). Los indicadores de DPUE y esfuerzo, obtuvieron calificaciones bajas de acuerdo con las categorías construidas por Herrera (2020), a excepción del PNN Utría. Con respecto a los indicadores “tallas” y “porcentaje de individuos capturados por debajo de la TMM”, estos presentaron calificaciones bajas, y están estrechamente relacionados con las reducidas tallas de captura en las áreas. Dadas las evidencias de que los recursos en las AMPs están en una condición que no es sostenible (PNN Uramba Bahía Málaga y PNN Sanquianga), es necesario avanzar en el establecimiento de medidas de manejo (tallas mínimas de captura, vedas temporales y espaciales, control de selectividad de artes de pesca), que resulten en la reducción del esfuerzo por pesca y el aumento de capturas por encima de la TMM de las especies

Software description: Regional frequency analysis of climate variables

This document provides the technical description of a software to be developed in the context of the EUROCLIMA project. EUROCLIMA is a cooperation program between the European Union and Latin America with a special focus in knowledge sharing on topics related to socio-environmental problems associated with climate change. The objective of the project is to improve knowledge of Latin American decision-makers and the scientific community on problems and consequences of climate change, particularly in view of integrating these issues into sustainable development strategies. The software described in this document will have as a general objective to process time series of data from ground stations (initially precipitation and temperature) in order to generate products in the form of spatially-explicit maps. The software will also be able to process any other time series of environmental spatial data. The main aspect characterizing this software is the use of statistics called L-moments to estimate the probability distribution function of climate variables. The L-moments are similar to other statistical moments, but with the advantage of being less susceptible to the presence of outliers and performing better with smaller sample sizes.JRC.H.5-Land Resources Managemen