sábado, 18 de noviembre de 2017

International Symposium on Dam Safety in Changsha (China)

Last 9-10th Nov, the International Symposium on Dam Safety, organized by the Chinese Committe on Large Dams, was held in Changsha, (China).


One of the invited speakers was Dr Enrique Cifres, who dealt with Dam Safety at basin scale.



Risk is a combination of hazards and potential damages. Dam safety should not be only managed at the dam itself for reducing hazards. Other issues as 


- Information / Mapping risk 
- Risk assessment
- Emergency action plans
- Land management 
- Insurance policies
- Economic losses mitigation
- Stakeholders involvement
- Improving resilience
- Transboundary coordination. etc..

must contribute to reduce potential damages. 
The speech dealt with those all things happening in the basin, specially in downstream areas, that can influence the risk balance.
Enrique's words were dedicated to Prof Zhang Guangdou, who passed away, being 100 years old, whose life was dedicated to people's welfare.



 

martes, 23 de mayo de 2017

The challenge: bigger cities, less water.

The challenge: How big cities have to tackle water scarcity?

Le défi: Comme les grandes villes doivent aborder la rareté de l'eau?

El reto: ¿Cómo pueden afrontar las grandes ciudades la escasez de agua?

World bank organized a workshop in Casablanca (Morocco), on "Water scarce cities" to face the new challenges at the Maghreb. The "Water strategy in theWestern Mediterranean" defined under the political process 5+5 (Portugal, Spain, France, Italy, Malta, plus Libia, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and Mauritania) was represented by Enrique Cifres, who dealt with priorities for a "smart policy when facing scarcity due to growth but also to climate change".
His speech dealt with how cities should built its resilience and intelligence for addressing this non futur but current challenge:
 
A city which faces water scarcity in a smart way:
  1. Has a modern legal framework to deal with water management
  2. Implements good governance policies and works for real integrated water resources managment 
  3. Cost recovery is a must
  4. Holds capacity buiding for its public servants as a priority
  5. Makes efforts in innovation
  6. Mobilizes innovative financial solutions
  7. Promotes adaptation to climate change
  8. Combines conventional and non-conventional water resources in a sustainable way
  9. Fosters improvements in efficiency of water uses
  10. Has a smart policy on land management related to flood risk.
  11. And takes care of water and environment quality
-------------------
La Banque Mondiale a organisé un atelier a Casablanca (Maroc) pour discuter "La rareté des eaux pour les villes" au Maghreb et comme on peut fair face à l'avenir. "La strategie common pour la Méditeraanée occidentale" défini dans le procesus politique "cinq plus cinq" (Portugal, Espagne, France, Italie, Malta, plus Libye, Tunisie, Algérie, Maroc et Mauritanie) a été présenté pour  Enrique Cifres, qui traité sur les priorités pour une "politique intelligent pour gérer la rareté de l'eau en raison de la croissance démographique et le changement climatique".

Il a possé la question de comme un ville devrait être pour avoir la resilience et intelligence suffisantes pour relever ce défi.
Qu’est-ce qu’est une ville intelligente du point de vue de l’eau ?
1. Une ville avec un cadre juridique modernisé
2. Avec une bonne gouvernance et gestion intégrée des ressources en eau 
3. Avec récupération des coûts pour une opération durable
4. Avec fonctionnaires bien formés
5. Une ville que fait des efforts en développement des innovations
6. Que mobilise des solutions de financement innovantes liées a l’eau
7. Adaptée au changement climatique
8. Que mobilise des ressources conventionnelles et non conventionnelles de manière durable.
9. Que favorise l’amélioration de l’efficacité de l’utilisation de l’eau
10. Avec un management intelligent du territoire exposé aux inondations.
11. Et, bien sûr, une ville que prend soin de la qualité de l’eau et de la biodiversité.

martes, 11 de abril de 2017

Dams & HEPP for Sustainable Development


Dr Enrique CIFRES chaired the session on DAM SURVEILLANCE AND OPERATIONAL BEHAVIOR at Antalya (Turkey) during the last meeting of the ICOLD EUROPEAN CLUB.

He stated that dam monitoring should be conceived like human body care, taking advantage of nature's wisdom, which provide a step by step monitoring system of health and body performance thanks a complex set of sensors that send signals as pain, pressure, heat,.. to the brain to be analysed from soft ones to more severe ones.

Also the chain data-information-diagnosis-safety assessment-decision making has to inspire the real need of monitoring instead a huge collection of no-sense data files, sometimes useless for a smart management of dam surveillance.
Seismicity and design hypothesis confirmation were among the topics the session dealt with.