Piota Panama canal hydrographic basin
America | Panama
The preparation of the Indicative Territorial and Environmental Management Plan (PIOTA) is an initiative of the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), with the support of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), through a Non-Reimbursable Technical Cooperation, which seeks to provide the territory of the Canal Watershed with a guiding instrument of spatial reference for socio-environmental and sustainable management.
The PIOTA is a guiding instrument that serves as a spatial reference for the socio-environmental and sustainable management of the Panama Canal Watershed (CHCP), which proposes an adequate land-use planning process, integrating a regional vision, the ecosystems that compose it and its protected areas; it also seeks to mitigate climate change, the decarbonization of the watershed, and the resilience and adaptation of all life systems and their inhabitants. It will be supported by a broad participation of all stakeholders.
Thus, it contributes to the sustainable and integrated management of the basin in the face of the growing challenges it faces, including climate change, increased demand for water and other natural resources, and the improvement of socioeconomic conditions.
As part of the work carried out to prepare the PIOTA for the Panama Canal watershed, it was necessary to develop a complete hydrological study of the Panama Canal watershed.
For this purpose, a hydrological model was created using WEAP (Water Evaluation and Planning System) software in which the behavior of the entire basin and its 10 main sub-basins was simulated. The modeling work also included the calibration of the model with data from the 7 main gauging stations available in the basin.
The hydrological study is a fundamental part of the PIOTA as it will be the starting point for evaluating future development scenarios and the subsequent identification of strategies that will contribute to reducing the vulnerability of the system, for which the RDM (Robust Decision Making) methodology will be used.
