Hydro-Bid Platform: Strengthening Of Management And Planning Of Water Resources In LAC

The Hydro-BID Platform was created by the Water and Sanitation Division (WSA) of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and includes two models, Hydro-BID, a rainfall-runoff system to estimate water availability and support water resources management and planning under scenarios of change (climate, demand, soil use). And Hydro-BID Flood a 2D finite volume hydrologic and hydraulic model with GPU capabilities to evaluate flood areas, evaluation of the effectiveness of infrastructure designed to mitigate flooding, and other riverine and urban designs as part of the investment evaluation processes. Hydro-BID is supported by a regional hydrologic analytical database that include delineation, connectivity and parametrization of more than 260.000 watersheds as well as a regional climatic database with precipitation and temperature data for each watershed.

In 2017 with the Support of PEPSICO Foundation (thought the AQUAFUND) the Water and Sanitation Division of the Inter-American Development Bank has launched the Hydro-BID Support Center (CeSH) coordinated by the Bank with the cooperation of Agencies, Academia and NGOs of LAC and Europe in order to, by the means of the Hydro-BID Platform, contribute to the improvement of the Water Resources Management and Climate Change Adaptation at a regional level through knowledge and technology transfer, technical assistance and also by improving the regional cooperation with the creation of the Hydro-BID Community of Practices. In addition, by means of the CeSH the IADB plans to promote the use of Hydro-BID Flood as a practical tool to support for hydraulic design and allowing technical evaluation of proposed structures and works, this will also boost the optimization of available budgets and the improvement of the technical capabilities of the implementing agencies leading to better, more efficient and sustainable infrastructure.

The CeSH has presence in 09 Countries and will expand to 16 in 2019 and has trained more than 500 technicians allong the region. In 7 countries Hydro-BID was already institutionalized as one of the official standard tools for water resources management and planning.