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Case

Water resource management is climate change adaption

31. October 2016

Solution provider

WSP
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One of the biggest challenges in the future is water resource management. Securing a sufficient amount of first class water and preventing both drought and flooding are tasks that call for robust management. Water resource management based on reliable data gives an opportunity to act.

How much water is flowing in the stream? Will people and animals have enough water to drink? Is there water enough to irrigate the fields or produce electricity? Is flooding to be expected?

Timely and reliable answers to such questions are essential for water resource management. Many people’s livelihoods may depend on these answers.

These challenges are becoming more and more important as we experience actual climatic changes – having higher temperatures, extreme weather, droughts and so on.

This calls for action, but to act we need knowledge – and data.

Data is knowledge
In water resource management, you have to know the facts. The actual hydrometric data of water level, flow, cross section surveys and so on. Then you can act and secure enough water, prevent flooding and also use data to be able to share and distribute scarce resources.

HYMER is a water data management system that provides a total overview of hydrometric, hydrological and climate data. It is designed to automatically retrieve and administer data, calculate, process and manage time series, and document and present the results in graphs and tables or to pipe data to the internet, flood forecasters, hydro power operators and many others.

Total overview
The system is tailored to handle the full hydrometric dataflow - from raw field based data of water level, current measurements, cross section surveys, etc., to importing and manipulating data in the program, statistical assessments, to exporting and linking up the results to GIS or web based interfaces.

The system can be executed as single or multi-user set up. HYMER has been developed over decades by Orbicon, based on more than 100 years of hands-on experience obtained through the task as the operator of the national centre for hydrometric data in Denmark.

Data at a glance on the fly
HYMER manages to automatic collect data from multiple types of hydrological and climatological measurement stations and to distribution these data to databases, hydrological models or dedicated web-sites.

Common collection modes are satellite based, phone dial up, internet ftp, email and others. HYMER can run on local servers or as a cloud based solution, which is easy to handle and allows for access anywhere.

HYMER offers transparency of information that can be shared with consumers and stakeholders.

Easy administration
The user can easily get access to all basic administrative data such as station number and name, station coordinates in UTM or geographic longitude and latitude, purpose of measurement, size of catchment, gauge board number, datum level, multiple cross section measurements and other information necessary to operate a hydrometric gauging station and network. Furthermore, a photo archive function is part of the administrative functionality, and time series of all types of data can be processed.

Many data types
HYMER handles a number of datatypes, among which are water level, velocity, discharge, temperature, conductivity, oxygen and metrological parameters (precipitation, wind speed/direction, solar radiation, evaporation, temperature, moisture, pressure, etc.). A user interface makes it possible to add further data types.

UN sustainable development goals
Integrated water resource management is a direct way to fulfil some of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. More specifically, the goals about Clean water, Climate action, Life below water and Life on land. Water scarcity is often the cause of poverty, hunger, conflicts and migration. Water Resource management helps prevent some of these disasters.