Gotham: A new tool for integrated groundwater management

Institutional setting

The GOTHAM Project (https://www.gotham-prima.eu) está enmarcado en el programa europeo PRIMA (Mediterranean Research and Innovation Partnership), focused on the development and implementation of solutions for water resources in the Mediterranean basin. This will be developed in the Campo de Dalías (Almería, Spain), and will be replicated at two additional sites, in Laat Baalbeck-Hermel (Lebanon) and in the Azraq-Zarqa Basin (Jordan).

The project has a duration of 3 years and Cetaqua-Andalucía leads a consortium formed by entities from 5 different countries: Spain (Cetaqua Andalucía and Universidad de Córdoda – WEARE), France (GAC Group), Italy (Istituto per la Cooperazione Universitaria – ICU – and Engineering Ingegneria Informatica – ENG), Lebanon (Ministry of Agriculture) and Jordan (National Agriculture Research Centre – NARC).

The GOTHAM project has several participating entities. Hidralia will collaborate in the development of this innovation project together with the municipalities of Roquetas, La Mojonera and Adra, as responsible for the management of the urban water cycle in these localizations.

To achieve an effective tool, Cetaqua also has in Andalusia the participation of local collaborators, users, managers and administrations involved in the water cycle, such as the General Directorate of Planning and Water Resources of the Junta de Andalucía, which will cede its control network for the installation of sensors and the monitoring of the state of the Campo de Dalías-Sierra de Gádor water body, and the Consorcio del Ciclo Integral del Agua del Poniente (CIAP).

Also participating as stakeholders in the project, the Central Board of Users of the Aquifer of the West of Almeria.

Geographical setting

The Mediterranean basin is one of the basins in the world with the highest risk due to climate changes and human factors; that is, global change. Today, the most affected areas are the eastern and southern coasts, which face great water stress and/or water scarcity. (GOTHAM, 2022).

The study area in Spain is located in the Hydrological Subsystem III-4, within the Hydrographic Demarcation of the Andalusian Mediterranean Basins (DHCMA). The Campo de Dalías-Gador, with an extension of 330 km2, constitutes a coastal plain limited between themountain range of the Sierra de Gádor, with heights of 200 to 300 m, and the Mediterranean Sea. On the pilot site there are 10 municipalities (Adra, Berja, Balanegra, Dalías, El Ejido, La Mojonera, Vícar, Eníx, Roquetas de Mar y Félix), representing a total population of 261,115 inhabitants in 2019 (GOTHAM, 2022).

The case study includes the aquifers present in the coastal plain and the south face of the Sierra de Gádor. This system constitutes the main body of water in the province of Almeria due to the volume of underground contributions. Five main aquifers within this subsystem III-4 of the DHCMA are described (GOTHAM, 2022).

Historical overview

According to the MITECO (2020), an adequate water governance system needs to generate and maintain up-to-date and relevant information for management objectives, adapted to the needs of the competent Administrations, easily accessible and verifiable by stakeholders, and transformed into knowledge useful for decision-making.

The objective of the project is to advance the digitalization of water management. However, given the current situation in the sector in which there is still no advanced use of ICT, together with the rapid evolution of these technologies, their adoption presents benefits for almost all situations.

Through the implementation or improvement of ICT systems, the following objectives can be achieved:

1. Capture of the appropriate information to make management decisions accurately at different levels: national, by basin, by infrastructure element or vertical according to the different parameters of water, volume, availability, quality, health, etc.
2. Reduce the costs of inefficiencies in management.
3. Enable accountability of water management.
4. Allow the planning and modeling of the sector for management decision making.
5. Allow the participation of the agents of the sector and of the citizenship in the management of the water.

Being an indispensable element in the modern management of almost any economic sector, ICT does not determine the priorities of water management in any of its aspects. But they help to make relevant information available to agents and decision-makers and help to make its management better known to society. They also allow, through the opening of management and the creation of appropriate internal procedures, the participation of the multiple actors in the sector, including citizens.

It should be noted that the structural changes in the water sector that have to come as a result of demographic changes, climate change, increased demand and, in general, respect for the principles of water governance can be adequately addressed by information technologies and these will help to better manage, however, the answers to these challenges cannot be expected only by the implementation of this type of technology. The objectives achievable by ICT can be summarized in the following points:

1. Management in ‘real time’ for which data must be captured with the necessary frequency and resolution.
2. Availability of data at decision points, although these come from a multitude of sources thanks to the possibility of federation and consolidation for compatibility and connectivity.
3. Common mechanisms for access to common and known data based on open international benchmarks that allow public and private development.
4. Opening, with the possibility of real time, of the data made available to citizens and agents of the sector, enabling active participation.
5. Creation of an infrastructure that allows the modeling of water management prior to decision making.
6. Complete digitalization, eliminating the manual processes associated with paper management.

Key points of the innovative method

• Nuevo modelo de gestión basado en los usuarios y el conocimiento del sistema.
• Promueve la participación de usuarios de múltiples sectores.
• Uso de TICs como soporte para la toma de decisiones tanto económicas, sociales como ambientales.