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DRR-Team Mission Report Argentina October 11- 15, 2016

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DRR-Team Mission Report Argentina October 11- 15, 2016 DRR-Team Mission Report Argentina October 11- 15, 2016 DRR-TEAM MISSION REPORT Argentina October 11-15, 2016 - 1 - 20 December 2016 Mission Report, Final DRR-TEAM MISSION REPORT Argentina October 11-15, 2016 - 2 - DRR-TEAM Argentina Document title Mission Report Status Final Date 20 December 2016 Project name DRRT mission Argentina Photos made available by Klaas de Groot Reference Written by Klaas de Groot, Marcela Laguzzi, Marina Gaton, Irene Pohl, Otto de Keizer Checked by RVO / Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Buenos Aires, Argentina Date/initials check Approved by DRR-TEAM MISSION REPORT Argentina October 11-15, 2016 - 3 - SUMMARY Between 11-15 October a follow up mission of the Dutch Risk Reduction (DRR) Program (Annex A) took place to Argentina. The Mission focused on flood risk challenges in the Rio Salado Basin as well as flood risk challenges in other regions of the country. Support was solicited by the Government of Argentina to the Dutch Government to provide assistance in the evaluation of the activities that are carried out to reduce flood risks. There is a need for finding an integrated approach for flood risk management in general and for management of the Rio Salado, a river basin South – South West of the city of Buenos Aires, in particular. With 170.000 km2, this river Figure 1 Location of the Rio Salado Catchment basin is, in respect to size, comparable to the Rhine River Basin. Other provinces that are located in the Pampa region (e.g. Cordoba and Santa Fe) cope with comparable challenges as these regions are very flat and only drain slowly. The mission team was composed of five representatives of the Dutch Water Sector: Klaas de Groot - integrated water resources management (IWRM) Marcela Laguzzi - water governance Marina Gaton – water quality Otto de Keizer – monitoring systems and early warning systems Irene Pohl – financing, funding and cost benefit analysis The Netherlands Embassy in Buenos Aires, together with the Subsecretario de Recursos Hídricos (Under secretariat of water resources) organized the mission and attended all meetings. The program can be found in Annex B. International Financing Institutions showed great interest in the results of the mission and the World Bank has participated in the mission to the Rio Salado. The sub secretariat of water resources of the province of Buenos Aires is responsible for the water works in the province and has introduced us to the challenges in the two focus areas. DRR-TEAM MISSION REPORT Argentina October 11-15, 2016 - 4 - The DRR-Team would like to thank everybody who has made this mission possible and shared with us their knowledge on water management related challenges in Argentina and the Province of Buenos Aires. A list of workshop participants and the people interviewed can be found in Annex C. A mutual interest clearly exists in managing the water system in an integrated manner. Sharing information and experiences has led to new opportunities and insights on how to integrate water management and facilitate socio-economic and environmental development. Figure 2 Mission team visiting the Rio Salado (Section III interventions) Integrated water resources management Many opportunities exist to manage the water resources in a more integrated manner. Ground water and surface water management need to be combined and water quality and water quantity are also treated separately. The lack of coordination between responsible authorities prevents anticipation of opportunities to combine interventions. In the integrated planning, the Plan Nacional del Agua (2016) has to be used as a mainframe to develop an integrated water plan for the province of Buenos Aires and other provinces. The provincial plan should guide the development of individual river basin management plans. It is recommended to start in the province with a water plan at provincial level as well as on one or two basins. A parallel development of the planning instruments will provide new experience on different strategic and operational levels. This experience will enrich the documents at these levels. Learning by doing should also be the strategy to strengthen the Autoridad de Agua of the provincial under secretariat of water resources (AdA) in their responsibility related to planning IWRM. AdA has to be in the lead for writing these plans, while coaching and training during the elaboration of the plans will enable the AdA to build the required capacity. There are valuable sources of information on hydrology (INA) and land use (INTA) in the basin. However, communication between the actors needs to be improved to assure that information is delivered in a usable format or that the availability is known at all. Improved communication between the Subsecretario de Recursos Hidricos and institutions like INA (Instituto Nacional de Agua) and INTA (Instituto Nacional de Technologia Agricola) could lead to more effective and efficient use of available information. Better definition of the information need of the responsible DRR-TEAM MISSION REPORT Argentina October 11-15, 2016 - 5 - authorities would enable research/knowledge institutions to focus their field research on these specific aspects. Some of the challenges and ideas generated during the week were also discussed with international financing institutions, such as the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. They acknowledge the need for integrated plans for the long term (financial and technical), not only for the Río Salado, and see opportunities for public private partnerships in this regard. Governance During an intensive 2-day workshop governance was discussed with the Buenos Aires Province Water Authority (Autoridad de Agua - AdA) and other stakeholders. Good water governance is a prerequisite for IWRM. Various aspects of governance were covered. The 3-layer model of the Netherlands Water Governance Centre and the OECD-gap analysis framework were used to analyze how water governance is organized for the Rio Salado Basin. This workshop and dialogues with stakeholders (mayors, agriculture associations, individual agriculture producers and representatives of other provincial and national ministries) led to the conclusions that there is a need to work on a shared and integrated vision on the development of the water system, the objectives to be achieved and the organizational structure that would serve best to do this. An inclusive approach is necessary to secure cooperation of all actors. A communication strategy has to assure that all actors know what will be done and who will be responsible. Initiatives should also include training and education programs for younger generations to raise awareness on flood risks and waste disposal and pave the way for a transition to living with water instead of fighting against water. The new organizational structure has to be financed in a transparent manner. Knowing what stakeholders pay for will increase their willingness to pay. Information on these funds as well as any other information should be made accessible. Exchange of information will facilitate the procedures to approve for new developments taking in to consideration the effect these developments have on the water system. Monitoring and Early Warning Systems Both on the national as well as the provincial level, a lot of interest exists for the development of monitoring and early warning systems. The current availability of hydrological data and information is recognized as a limiting factor for the management of river basins and hydrological risks in Argentina. Monitoring networks are a priority and an important basis for (cost effective) river basin planning and early warning system. The existing hydrological and meteorological networks depend on federal institutions that maintain a limited monitoring density. The actual investments in flood prevention and water quality management are substantial. This has been paid by public funds (Fondo Hídrico). Improving data availability is fundamental to monitor the effects of implemented interventions and to improve model simulations used to support planning and decision making processes. Providing up-to-date information and early warnings of extreme events to its inhabitants is crucial to reduce risks. Flooding in the Rio Salado basin are mainly slow events that take days to weeks that affect the agricultural sector and some villages. There is sufficient lead time to take necessary measures to reduce social and economic damage. A main challenge will be to create the necessary institutional capacity within the province for hydro-meteorological and water quality monitoring which guarantees operation and maintenance in the long term, as well as an DRR-TEAM MISSION REPORT Argentina October 11-15, 2016 - 6 - appropriate use of the data. The monitoring networks from federal institutions provide a first basis that can be complemented with a provincial monitoring network for the Salado basin based on the local needs for water management and early warning. At this moment, there are insufficient monitoring stations and some of the equipment is obsolete. Funding/financing and cost recovery mechanisms During the mission, special attention was given to economic and financial aspects. There are many challenges and opportunities to fund and finance water resilience projects. Costs are normally well defined while benefits are less defined, nor monitored. Improving the cost benefit analysis in pre- and post-project evaluation will increase insight in effectiveness of the interventions proposed
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