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LATIN AMERICA
The News N° 24
FRom one conTinenT To anoTHeR
Colombia
National Environmental System
A reform process is underway in Colombia to
improve water resources management. It
plans
the short-term development of
Strategic Plans
for the five major river
basins regions of the country: Magdalena-
Cauca, Caribbean, Pacific, Orinoco, Amazon.
Since 2012, the International Office for
Water has been implementing the
French-Colombian cooperation project
funded by the Adour Garonne Water
Agency with the Colombian Ministry of
the Environment and Sustainable Deve-
lopment.
This institutional support focuses on three
main issues:
➊
Methodologies for formulating the
Strategic Plan for the Rio Magda-
lena-Cauca; regarding:
n
The content and objectives of the Strate-
gic Plan;
n
The organization and functioning of the
Magdalena Cauca River Basin Council;
n
The installation of a Permanent Secreta-
riat.
Given the importance of this river basin and
its impact at the national level, the tasks per-
formed exceeded the basin scale to influence
the National Policy for Integrated Water
Resources Management (PNGIRH),
by
providing structuring elements.
➋
Improvement of data management
under the Environmental Informa-
tion System of Colombia (SIAC) and
more specifically the Water Resource
Information System (SIRH), mana-
ged by the National Institute IDEAM.
The first two missions of
IOWater,
which
took place in November 2012 and March
2013, allowed presenting the French expe-
rience in water data management in terms of
establishing common languages and refe-
rence frames and enhancing interoperability
between existing information systems in
conformity with the “SANDRE” standards (see
page 34).
The Colombian partners wish to facilitate the
integration of national and regional data
under the Regional Water Resources Assess-
ment program (ERA).
An inter-administrative framework agreement
was signed between the Head of IDEAM and
the regional authorities in the Bogota region
(CAR, Acueducto, FOPAE, SDA) in September
2013.
Following this agreement, a mission carried
out in October 2013 helped organize the first
exchanges with the regional partners and
validate
the principles of the develop-
ment of a data sharing platform
by
increasing interoperability between systems
with the first elements of a common water
reference frame.
➌
Organization of industrial pollution
control in the Rio Bogota.
The technical discussions focused on:
❖
Economic and financial instruments for
the management of water uses;
❖
Regional institutional organization neces-
sary for the control and monitoring of pol-
luting discharges.
The CAR/ Rio Bogota,
the largest of the
32 Colombian Regional Environmental
Authorities, and
IOWater
organized a series
of visits to industrialists which helped to
check the relevance of the formulated recom-
mendations.
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Information: Fax: +33 4 93 65 44 02 - E-mail:
Meeting of the Expert
Group, October 2013
The Magdalena River
