On World Environment Day, the BioCuenca Alliance is launched in Cucutá, Colombia. BioCuenca seeks to generate a collective action platform directed at the environmental conservation of the catchments of the rivers Zulia and Pamplonita in Northern Santander, Colombia.

The “Biocuenca Alliance” (Alianza Biocuenca), a public-private fund to protect the basins of the Zulia and Pamplonita rivers in Colombia, will complete this April its first 10 months of operation. Some important achievements have strengthened this cooperation platform.

The government of Colombia is the first national government to publish a complete multi-sectoral water footprint assessment of all watersheds in its territory. The study was realised by a partnership of the Embassy of Switzerland - Agency of Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC), Good Stuff International Latin America and the Caribbean (GSI-LAC) and Centro of Science and Techology of  Antioquia –CTA.

Nowadays, anyone can do almost anything from a smarthphone. One can order a cab, pay and transfer money, monitor a house, see the earth from outer space and find any location... These technologies allow us to do thing that were unimagianble just a few years ago. This sudden change is often called disruptive. And this disruption in technology opens a whole new world of possibilities in the field of sustainability.

September 2017

The Geographic Agricultural Water Footprint Calculator (GAWFC) is a software tool that calculates green and blue water footprints of crops at geographic locations based on five georeferenced data inputs. It is based in the FAO Report 56 for calculation of crop Evapotranspiration and on the Water Footprint Assessment Manual developed by WFN. The structure of the input files enables the calculation of green and blue water footprints of multiple sites and of multiple crops. The tool can thus not only be used in sites but also for catchment and supply chain agricultural water footprint calculations.

Example of the georeferenced GAWFC output of blue and green water footprints (m³/t) of banana farms in Dominican Republic

The first version of the code was developed by Dr. Mesfin Mekonnen with the support of the University of Twente in The Netherlands (and currently at University of Nebraska), in 2011. In 2016, after an agreement with Dr. Mekonnen, Derk Kuiper from Good Stuff International further developed the code and created the software tool GAWFC. Also, we at GSI have validated GAWFC against the FAO CROPWAT model.

GAWFC has been used so far in at least 10 different catchments and crops around the globe. With the automatization of the agricultural water footprint calculation, it is now possible to assess crop water use scenarios in an efficient and cost-effective way, which automatically increased the practical applications of the water footprint concept. Results have been used to produce robust farm water balances for the application of the AWS (Alliance for Water Stewardship) standard, to generate crop water use benchmarks for specific localities and crops, to assess scenarios on water productivity, and to assess an entire agricultural sector within a catchment with the aim of setting practical water targets. The field of applications is rapidly growing and the potential is huge.

We at GSI are organising how to make this software tool available to the public. Pls contact Derk Kuiper (Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.) or Erika Zarate (Esta dirección de correo electrónico está siendo protegida contra los robots de spam. Necesita tener JavaScript habilitado para poder verlo.) if you want to know more. You can find GAWFC's brochure here. 

Example project using GAWFC: Water Footprint Assessment for the entire banana sector in Dominican Republic

The Geographic Agricultural Water Footprint Calculator (GAWFC) is a software tool that calculates green and blue water footprints of crops at geographic locations based on five georeferenced data inputs. It is based in the FAO Report 56 for calculation of crop Evapotranspiration and on the Water Footprint Assessment Manual developed by WFN. The structure of the input files enables the calculation of green and blue water footprints of multiple sites and of multiple crops. The tool can thus not only be used in sites but also for catchment and supply chain agricultural water footprint calculations.

Last June 13th, GSI was present at the event "Water Footprint as an indicator of efficiency and sustainability for a better water management", organized by IAHR-Spain Water and the Spanish Water Footprint platform ESAgua. The event, held in the Spanish ministry of Agriculture and Environment, served to show our framework WaterData4Action and the recently developed Geographic Agricultural Water Footprint Calculator (GAWFC).

GSI was present in Stockholm this year, sharing learnings with the Water Footprint Network on our ENA project: the incorporation of the water footprint assessment to the 316 watersheds in Colombia. We shared the factors of success that led to water footprint knowledge appropriation by IDEAM. By providing these factors we set the ground for future reproductions of this process in other countries.

GSI is engaging with the municipality and the Lötschenbach club in order to use publicly available and geographically distributed data provided by the Federal Office of the Environment (BAFU by its German acronym) to prepare a water budget and trigger participation.

El pasado martes 13 de junio tuvieron lugar en Madrid las jornadas IAHR – Spain Water sobre Huella Hídrica como indicador de sostenibilidad, bajo la coordinación de EsAgua, la plataforma española promotora de la Huella Hídrica a nivel nacional.  En GSI tuvimos la oportunidad de exponer nuestra experiencia, manera de trabajar y el reciente desarrollo de la calculadora de Huella Hídrica GAWFC.

La calculadora geográfica de Huella Hídrica agrícola (GAWFC) calcula huellas hídricas verdes y azules de cultivos en localizaciones geográficas basándose en cinco conjuntos de datos de entrada georreferenciados. Está basado en FAO y en el manual de evaluación de huella Hídrica de la Water Footprint Network (WFN). La herramienta puede no sólo ser utilizada a nivel de finca, sino también para cálculos de Huella Hídrica a nivel de cuenca o para cadenas de suministro agrícola.

La tecnología detrás de las aplicaciones que tanto nos gustan, a menudo se llaman disruptivas. Disruptivo significa que una vieja forma de hacer las cosas de repente se "rompe", se vuelve obsoleta y repentinamente, se abre un nuevo mundo de posibilidades, también para la sostenibilidad.

BLUE-THUMB-UP: Una herramienta onliine libre para ayudar a los agricultores a mejorar su uso del agua, rendimientos y sostenibilidad.

BLUE-THUMB-UP es una herramienta online libre que proporciona fácil acceso a la información para mejorar la productividad y la sostenibilidad en el uso del agua en la agricultura en cualquier parte del mundo. 

La herramienta le proporcionará información sobre las necesidades hídricas de su cultivo en los próximos cuatro días y estima la disponibilidad de agua existente en el suelo. La humedad existente en el suelo es estimada por el usuario y por la cantidad de lluvia prevista. La herramienta evalúa si el agua contenida en el suelo es suficiente para el correcto desarrollo de su cultivo concreto, y si no es así, ofrecerá una estimación del volumen de riego que será necesario aplicar. 

Hemos desarrollado BLUE-THUMB-UP para mostrar que los datos globales, los modelos y la información a nivel de campo pueden ser combinadas en una plataforma OnLine para poder ayudar y orientar a los agricultores sobre las necesidades hídricas de sus cultivos y cuando y cuánto será necesario regar. 

La herramienta es libre para que todo el mundo pueda acceder a ella y utilizarla para sus propios beneficios. Siéntase libre de usarla, compartir sus experiencias con nosotros y aportarnos sus comentarios y sugerencias para mejorarla y añadirle características adicionales.