A New Approach to Hydrological Capacity Development in Central America
Hydrological capacity development is essential to support Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama in their preparation to engage in the WMO Global Hydrological Status and Outlook System (HydroSOS).
WMO, in collaboration with the Central American Regional Committee for Hydraulic Resources (CRRH), has implemented a new approach to capacity development in the area of hydrology in Central America. The approach leverages the voluntary exchange of knowledge between expert trainers, expert networks and WMO Regions and Regional Training Centres (RTC) to optimize resource investments. This hydrological capacity development is essential to support Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama in their preparation to engage in the WMO Global Hydrological Status and Outlook System (HydroSOS).
Over the past two years, WMO and CRRH have completed on-site assessments of the capabilities of the National Hydrological Services (NHSs) of each country, which highlighted their capacity development needs. The assessments were used Regional Implementation Plan in consultation with the countries, which was endorsed by the Nineteenth Session of the World Meteorological Congress (Cg-19) in June 2023. Within that framework, a four-course training programme was refined to improve hydrological capabilities for HydroSOS. Each course focuses on one of the four elements of the value chain for operational hydrology:
- Observation and instrumentation
- Data analysis and processing
- Modelling
- Prediction/forecasting.
Six organizations – Facultad de Ingeniería y Ciencias Hídricas (FICH) of the Universidad Nacional del Litoral (a WMO RTC node in Argentina), Instituto de Pesquisas Hidráulicas (IPH) of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil); Red Iberoamericana para el Monitoreo y Pronóstico de Fenómenos Hidrometeorológicos (PROHIMET), Dirección General del Observatorio de Amenazas (El Salvador), Brigham Young University (USA) and Centro Internacional de Agricultura Tropical (CIAT, Colombia) – contributed 11 expert trainers. Collaboration with FICH allowed the development of a Moodle virtual classroom to support the four training modules.
From September to December 2023, 320 professional and technical staff from NHSs and partner hydrological institutions participated in 22 in-country training sessions. Four regional closing workshops (hybrid sessions) allowed 158 of those participants to share the lessons learnt from the courses, technical experiences and good practices.
The scope of the trainings demonstrated the power of this new approach with respect to direct on-site contribution to countries and the optimization (cost reduction) of preliminary consultation, assessment and planning processes. The HydroSOS training is an example of good practice in delivering value-for-money to strengthen capabilities and engage active participation of Members in WMO programmes and initiatives.
