SIMA – MyFish

Unplanned economic development is rapidly degrading river basins putting at risk food provision. In the Magdalena River Basin in Colombia, around 157.000 low-income fishers are struggling to maintain their livelihoods. Fish production has halved in the last 35 years as waters were polluted and forest cleared. Fisher's food system and the sustainability of the basin, which concentrates 80% of the country's GDP, is at high risk.

An informed and participatory approach is needed to balance water, energy, and food nexus. The software tools SIMA and MiPez (MyFish) seek to radically transform decision-making for our rivers. SIMA is a decision-support-system, which combine cross-sector and environmental indicators, to inform sustainable trade-offs. MiPez is a mobile app for fishers to report their activities. This information, unregistered by institutions, feeds SIMA. By combining strong data and the fisher's contributions, development scenarios are available to preserve fishers' livelihoods and rich-carbon sequester wetlands. 

Healthy rivers are essential for food security. Agriculture, infrastructure and climate change are driving major transformations in crucial basins across the globe. Vulnerable inland fisheries are competing for water resources with other more valued economic sectors while facing climate risks. This is the case for at least 157.000 low-income fishers in last-mile communities in the Magdalena River Basin, the social and economic heart of Colombia. 

The Magdalena basin produces 80% of GDP and is home to 77% of the country's 50 million inhabitants. In the last five decades, 70% of the basin's forests were cleared, mainly for cattle ranching, causing erosion of 78% in the river. As result, fish production has halved in the last 35 years. The basin has over 30 built hydropower dams with an additional 100 possible projects. Rapid and poorly designed development to address water-energy-food demands, together with other economic activities managed separately, disturb river flows harming wildlife and the livelihoods of communities, which depend on fishing for their food security (average 36,5 kg/yr of fish per person). Fishers' diets and culture are at high risk. Balancing the pressing economic development with social and environmental considerations is imperative to restore the sustainability of this food system.

Our solutions are two interrelated software-tools: Macrobasin Decision Support System (SIMA) and MiPez (MyFish). SIMA addresses the inter-linkages of Water-Energy-Food resources to inform stakeholders, allowing them to consider trade-offs and synergies properly. It is a free and open-source web-based tool developed in Drupal in a Linux based Apache web server and uses MySQL as database. It has models and analytical tools, allowing stakeholders to collectively share information and assumptions, and then be involved in strategic decisions of the basin. In SIMA, the user can configure possible future scenarios to be analyzed and predict their benefits and impacts.

SIMA’s emphasis is freshwater ecosystems and large-scale development in sectors such as hydropower, agriculture, flood control, environmental restoration and climate change. SIMA enables diverse collaborators to adapt it, has interoperability capabilities to connect with other information systems and additional analytical tools can be incorporated. One of these interrelated tools is MiPez (MyFish), a mobile app for fishers to gather and report their activities improving biodiversity and fisheries data. This information feeds SIMA to improve fisheries considerations in large scale-basin planning.  This approach contributes to the understanding of the Water-Energy-Food nexus and the visibility of fishers in the decision-making process.

Our target population are the fisher's communities in the remote wetlands and riverbanks of the Magdalena River Basin in the central and northern regions of Colombia.  Our research in 2015 estimated that around 35.000 fishermen are living in the Magdalena basin. Their productive activities provide income and food for around 157.000 people. For 65% of the fishers, fishing is the only source of livelihood. They live in conditions of poverty with an average income of less than 130 USD per month. However, their activities are crucial for maintaining the food security of last-mile communities. Its importance is further increasing in recent years under severe climate events such as extreme droughts and floods due to El Niño (2015) and La Niña (2011) events.

Fishers have also been impacted by the prolonged armed conflict in Colombia. Massacres, the killing of leaders, and forced displacement have affected them and their families.  Despite all of this, their traditional artisanal fishing practices- with tools such as fishhooks, hand baskets, or trammel nets- are together with the associated rich-cultural expressions of their livelihoods on the way to be recognized as immaterial heritage by Unesco.

Our approach with SIMA and MyFish aligns with the global challenge of contributing to nutritious diets and low-carbon food system. We are bringing human-centered tech-based solutions to guide development decisions at the basin scale and improve participation through citizen-science. It will result in the improvement of fisheries catches (more valued native-fish species and quantity), fishers' diets and the conservation of rich-carbon sequesters wetlands. We are working at multiple scales to secure food security based on the power of macro-basin scenario analysis and citizen participation. Our solution also supports small-scale producers with access to knowledge to improve fisheries.  

Our solutions present unique characteristics compared to other tech solutions for basins management. Thus, we have not yet encountered competitors for SIMA and MiPez app. These are the main highlights of our innovation: 

Strong Analytical Capacity: SIMA's assessment capacity makes it possible in practice to operate the concept of the Water-Food-Energy Nexus approach by integrating the cross-sectors decisions that affect the sustainability of the basin. This is a remarkable advance in turning conceptual approaches into feasible and practical tools for sustainable planning.

Free Culture Philosophy: SIMA is based on values that promote collective action for sustainability. It' s an open-source and collaborative tool aiming at presenting better-informed scenarios for basin's development. 

Worldwide Potential Use:  SIMA can be replicated in different basins. It is already used in other geographies (in early stages) such as the Orinoquia in Colombia and the Ucayali in Perú.

Multiple Sources of Data Gathering: the tool can connect and process information from Google Earth Engine to use remote sensors data, mobile apps data through citizen science (e.g. MiPEz). SIMA also can add other systems and tools.

Tailored Design for Vulnerable Communities: MiPez app considers the educational limitations of low-income fishers to read. It is designed to be a very visual and user-friendly front-end with many drawings and photos. It also takes into account the connectivity restrictions of the mobile network in isolated regions. It saves coordinates offline and uploads them to SIMA when a network connection is available.

SIMA is   a robust and flexible technological platform that allows the efficient management of alpha-numeric and spatial databases. SIMA has tools for the management, analysis and storage of data generated through mobile applications and mathematical modeling. It is a Drupal-based development that runs on a Linux-based Apache web server and uses MySQL as a database manager. MiPez (MyFish) is an application developed under the IONIC framework with integration of the SQL-Lite database managed by typescript, which allows it to generate an internal database guaranteeing the Offline operation. This information is synchronized through the Drupal API in PHP provided by the SIMA web portal. Then the system consolidates the information reported by the fishermen in its MySQL database to integrate it as part of the global vision of the watershed. SIMA also allows the information to be consulted through reports or web services.

We developed an engine for creating and analyzing case studies in SIMA. A user can create a case study that combines scenarios related with climate (including climate change) and population growth and alternatives related to land-use change, large-scale infrastructure development, agricultural use, livestock use, among others. SIMA technology allows the user to configure possible future scenarios to be analyzed and predict their benefits and impacts to support decision-making under an integrated effect of the Water - Energy - Food nexus combining mathematical modeling and information in the field.

SIMA and MyFish are tools developed in a beta version and they are currently working. You could access them here: www.sima-dss.net

We elaborated an academic paper for presenting evidence on SIMA and provide an example of possible applications for improving the planning process of hydropower expansion in the Magdalena Basin with an integrated management vision, where water and food (agricultural land cover and irrigated areas) are also considered. Here is the link: https://tnc.box.com/s/1vg949oifp9zye29s4c5g2r2j2qmzruo  

Currently, these tools are in a testing phase inside TNC and with participation of some stakeholders of the Magdalena Basin. In the past, information in SIMA has supported licensing authorities’ assessment of some infrastructure projects. We are planning to use SIMA in the Orinoquia basin (Colombia) to support a multi-stakeholder’s platform for this region (Pact for the Sustainable development of the Orinoquia), where agroindustry expansion is planned.

Multiple water users and pressures in the Magdalena basin, the most important watershed in Colombia, are leading to unprecedented degradation and high risk for fisheries-dependent communities. Our theory of change seeks a desirable state in which adequate decision-making at the basin level results in a healthy state for the river and a sustainable and rich-nutrient food system for fishers.

Our tech-based solution is based on two components: integral data-based watershed availability with SIMA and on-ground citizen data gathering with MiPez app. Both solutions interact to achieve the desired long-term outcomes for the basin.

We hypothesize that if fishers' communities gather, report and upload their activity data (catches, fishing areas, species) in MiPez app and this data is integrated into SIMA's strategic assessments of the basin, fisheries indicators will be taken into consideration in larger decisions making process at the basin scale. If a strong decision support system (SIMA) is available for multi-sector stakeholders, better decisions are taken at the macro-basin level regarding the nexus among biodiversity, energy, agriculture and water provision. If an informed and transparent decision process occurs, then more sustainable development alternatives are in place, leading to a healthier basin, where there is equity in resource-sharing and less harmful impacts for vulnerable communities by avoiding unplanned economic development.  

In the scenario of a healthier basin, where crucial habitats are protected, and there are optimal conditions for native fish species, we foresee larger fish catches that will positivetly impact local fiseries economies and their traditional diets. 

As the app has been in development until recently, there are no users yet of SIMA or MiPez. Currently, we are testing a Beta version inside TNC and with stakeholders from Magdalena and Orinoquia basins.

In one year, we hope to use the resources of this award to strengthen the use of MiPez among the fishers of the Magdalena basin. For them to start feeding SIMA with their data, we need efforts such as proper training through their associations and other entities. We plan to start at least with two associations in the Magdalena middle-basin subregion (Barbacoas wetlands) and another in the low-basin area (Zapatosa wetland). Other entities are think-tanks, educational entities, local authorities, and governmental entities that work with the fisher population and support good fishery practices (such as the National Authority of fisheries -AUNAP and Cormagdalena). Throughout those efforts, we expect to reach proximately 550 fishers.

In five years, we want to continue with this effort and reach the engagement of several public and private entities. We expect to empower the other five associations in the Magdalena and Orinoquia river basins and increase the number of fishers using MiPez app to approximately 2350 fishers. If SIMA is properly used to make strategic decisions at the basin level, the number of indirectly benefited people will rise to at least 20% of the river basin, which corresponds to approximately 6 million people whose income and food security depends on a healthy Magdalena River Basin.

For the next year, our impact goal is to improve fishers’ economic activity  in the Magdalena and Orinoquia river basins by using MiPez app. This tool allows them to monitor their income and expenses, fishing techniques, and general information on the basin's state. We hope that they share the information about their fishing activities and help us feed information into SIMA. These data would improve the knowledge about the variety of fish species that inhabit the river basin and the fisheries dynamics. The wellbeing of the fishers, as well as their families, will be positively impacted.

We foresee more sustainable decision-making in the basin by increasing SIMA's users in the Magdalena and Orinoquia river basins and by involving key stakeholders such as fishing and environmental authorities, civil society, and companies. These decision-makers will be better informed about the interdependencies between food security, water, and energy management, which will improve the relations between these sectors and ensuring the compliance of future resource demands. 

Our first-year goal is to increase the number of users of MiPez and SIMA in the Magdalena river basin and to start engaging key stakeholders in the Orinoquia basin. We are going to carry out this strategy through all our conservation activities in the region.

Our five-year goal is to scale the efforts to promote the use of SIMA in decisions makers in these two basins and explore potential users in other basins (through TNC projects around the world).

Some identified barriers are related to financial capacity as we are a project-based organization. We must search for potential funding (such as this challenge) to fund our work and this have limited our goals.

Another barrier is related to technical capacity for developing and maintaining software developments. We are a conservation organization and though we have conceptualized and developed these tools, while learning some experience, we have also faced many complications and challenges.

Also, this is the first time that the team have worked with citizen-science (MiPez) and this require information quality control processes and post-processing that we need to start to address. One key barrier for the use of MiPez by fishers is the mobile network and access to smartphones. The areas of the basin with fisheries are commonly out of signal and fishers are low-income people who could not afford to buy a smartphone. Another barrier is that some fishers don´t read or write, so the adoption of the tool could be limited.

Finally, our vision implies a substantial change in the way river basins, water, energy and food resources are managed. These changes need an important and continue effort by the team. It also required some stakeholders to be committed with the idea. One of these changes is the need to address operatively and in an integrated way the Nexus concept and the intersectoral development plans. Another important issue is the collaborative framework, where many different stakeholders contribute to a system.

The following is how we are planning to address the identified barriers:

Financial: The Nature Conservancy is committed with the conservation projects and this includes the maintenance of the tools we developed as we saw it as is part of our responsibility, so we hope to continue searching for opportunities to finance these tools. This financial effort also includes not only the technical aspects but all the activities needed to position them and increase the number of users, engaging key stakeholders and entities.

Technical: we are looking after a partner with experience in software development, who shared with us our expectations on SIMA and MyFish, and who is willing to continue the development of these tools with us. Also, we are looking for a partner with experience in citizen-science and, hopefully, with interest in MyFish, to support us in quality control processes and the efforts needed to scaling-up the number of users.

MyFish app considers the educational limitations of low-income fishers to read. It is designed to be a very visual and user-friendly front-end with many drawings and photos. It also considers the connectivity limitations of the mobile network in isolated regions. It saves coordinates offline and uploads them to SIMA when a network connection is available.

The Nature Conservancy is a global non-for-profit organization dedicated to preserve the lands and Waters on which all life depends. TNC team in Colombia developmed SIMA solution and the MiPez app, software tools designed to allow communities thrive their nature following TNC`s main misión. these tools also responded to TNC`s global priorities of protecting Land and Water, providing Food and Water Sustainably and Taclink Climate Change, all of them crucial to achieve the goals of our Shared Conservation Agenda in 79 countries. 

At least fifteen different staff members from The Nature Conservancy have participated in the development of SIMA and MiPez to some degree. All of them were part-time staff. A core development team of 4 to 5 people has dedicated more time with 20-40% of their working hours.

We contracted some teams with an average of six people. Two to three of them were part-time with a 30 to 50 % dedication, and three people were working full-time.

Present in Colombia for more than 30 years, The Nature Conservancy has worked hard to establish strategic partnerships and has become a leading voice for conservation in the country. TNC's work to date has demonstrated an ability to deliver science-based action and results on the ground through collaborating with local communities. 

Since 2009, we have worked for the sustainability of the Magdalena macro-basin by implementing ecosystems-based adaptation in diverse inland wetlands, establishing public-private partnerships for basins conservation and transforming sustainable cattle ranching practices with farmers. Our work with SIMA started in 2015 to develop innovative free open-access modeling tools for the basin's future development.  Our work on the watershed planning has involved on-ground research with fishers' communities and their involvement in data-gathering and monitoring for proper resources management since 2018.

Our team consists of 8 specialists in hydrology, software development, biology, policy, communications, and business fields.  Additionally, we have a network of scientists and conservation specialists from our global and regional offices.

Our strengths are:

-Presence at different levels

- Network across sectors

-Credibility and science-based reputation

-Trust on the ground

The Nature Conservancy is an organization that works collaboratively. For our conservation work in the Magdalena River and in the Orinoquia region we have worked together with diverse partners, including academia, research institutions, other NGOs, sectorial associations, companies, and government authorities and institutions. In the Magdalena River we have worked with the National Authority for Aquaculture and Fisheries (AUNAP) that is part of the Ministry of Agriculture, the National Authority of Environmental Licencing and Ministry of Environment, regional environmental authorities, energy generators companies and their association, local and regional fishers associations, Universities of Antioquia and Javeriana, Instituto Humboldt, Alma and Humedales Foundations, among many others. All these partners have participated in different ways through the development of SIMA and MiPez, from their design and conceptualizing, to the testing. 

For our conservation work in the Magdalena River we have had diverse partners, who have also participated in the SIMA and MiPez design and conceptualizing. However, the only partner we have had for the development of the SIMA software is CREACUA, an NGO with which we had a memorandum of understanding while we worked in the original design of the decision support system. Currently, all the development of the system and MiPez have being done by contractors. 

TNC offers advice and guidance to public and private actors interested in land and water conservation and restoration, sustainable production and climate change mitigation and adaptation. TNC provides scientific information and analysis of environmental priority landscapes to improve decisions. SIMA is case in point of this. It is an open-access web tool that provides wide information about river basins and allows their monitoring. It is a decision support system created to promote early planning and better decision making related to impact in rivers and basins due to changes in population, climate change, land use and infrastructure projects, among others. SIMA and MiPez, if properly used by critical decision-making actors, can lead to healthier river basins with more fish available and better economic prosperity for  local communities.    

By using SIMA's analysis, the direct beneficiaries are the vulnerable low-income communities, such as the fisheries-dependent communities. Economic sectors, corporations and investors, as well as households located in the basin, will also be positively impacted by SIMA considering their water and energy demands in the basin. However, we believe that the SIMA-MiPez solution should especially call the attention of public entities (national and local). They can use SIMA to better plan and decide on the basin's development, aiming at a more efficient placement of economic activities, climate change mitigation and adaptation strategies, and food security of vulnerable communities.

We believe that the Global Challenge 2020 and the Become a Solver approach fits perfectly with SIMA and MiPez solutions and needs for taking these innovations up to the next level for its use and implementation. 

The network of partners and support coming along with the awards will mainly allow us to strengthen our software development partners and to innovate in our revenue model. We expect that the future mentorship given by SOLVE and MIT can boost the last development phase of our solution.  

One key challenge we are facing is related to our technical capacities for developing and maintaining software tools. In that sense, we are looking for a partner that has this experience, who could be in charge of the software developing while we, as a conservation organization, will be focus in the development of tools that could be added to the system and the implementation with stakeholders in the geographies were we work.

We also need to update our funding and revenue model, so this is another partner we need, that could be an advisor. As a non-profit NGO we faced the problem of maintain enough funding to support and update the technological solutions, while we advance in our conservation projects. We haven´t see these solutions as products that could stands (financially) by its own, so an advisor or a partner interest in solving this challenge could be very useful. 

It would be great if MIT CSAIL (programming languages and software engineering) and the MIT Digital Transformation Program finds these solutions interesting and be willing to partner with us. As mentioned in barriers, we need partners to strengthened and complement our capacities in technical areas where we are not the best organization. TNC could partner with MIT to promote research groups that addresses key issues for SIMA and MyFish, through collaboratively work with professors and students, that are willing to work in real and practical science.

TNC has an agreement with Amazon. We are willing to explore if they are also interested to wide this collaboration into more cloud services and software support.

We believe that SIMA and MiPez solutions qualify to  be considered for the Andan Prize for Innovation in Refugee Inclusion, because our target population, the fisheries-dependent communities, have been victims of forced displacement due to the prolonged armed conflict in Colombia and, recently, by extreme weather events such as droughts and floods intensified by climate change.

The wetlands, riverine banks, and many areas within the Magdalena basin were impacted by violent events such as massacres, killing of social leaders and forced displacement by guerrilla groups, paramilitary forces and the own State agencies. The Magdalena River is known as the largest open common grave for thousands of armed conflict victims who were thrown into the river. Over five decades, the armed conflict shaped the uses and access to natural resources affecting vulnerable communities’ rights and human development. 

As Colombia slowly advances in a post-conflict phase after the Peace Agreement signing in 2016, we believe that powerful digital tools such as SIMA and MiPez can contribute to design and plan a more sustainable pathway, which considers vulnerable communities such as the fishers.

We hope to use the resources of this award to strengthen the use of MiPez among the fishers of the Magdalena basin. For them to start feeding SIMA with their data, we need efforts such as proper training through their associations and other entities. We plan to start at least with two associations in the Magdalena middle-basin subregion (Barbacoas wetlands) and another in the low-basin area (Zapatosa wetland).

We believe that SIMA and MiPez solutions qualify to be considered for the AI for Humanity as SIMA is a platform that uses strong data science tools for the management, analysis, and storage of data generated through mobile applications and mathematical modeling. The tool seeks to offer comprehensive scenarios that combine scenarios related to climate (including climate change) and population growth and alternatives related to land-use change, large-scale infrastructure development, agricultural use, livestock use, among others. Our decision-support system can be applied to diverse basins across the world. Currently, we have done some trials in Colombia and Peru. However, we foresee a larger impact if we can finalize the monitoring and visualization systems of the tool as well as an engagement strategy to try it out with several partners.

We will use the money of the prize to advance in these strategies:

Improve the SIMA's capacity in data managing, processing and visualization, making it to produce graphics, figures, and consolidate reports. This is crucial to make SIMA's analysis pertinent and clear for multi-stakeholders and is part of the requirements of the system in order to be used as a monitoring tool (capable of generating indices, indicators, define goals).

Improve the testing processes of the tools and guarantee their maintenance and support for users.