The presentation of this mobile application, that was developed by IDEA Public Union and UNDP-GEF Kura II Project in partnership with the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources and Azersu OJSC, coincided with the world celebration of the Earth Day.

It should be noted that the initiative to create a mobile application aimed at mobilizing the public to reduce water loss was put forward by Leyla Aliyeva, Vice President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, founder of the IDEA Public Union, during the Youth Forum on June 5, 2018 - World Environment Day. Later, IDEA and the UNDP-GEF Kura II project decided to jointly create such mobile application.

As it is known, in most countries the losses from the municipal water distribution networks is between 20-70%. That means most of the treated drinking water leaking into the streets and public places and lost before it reaches consumers due to the accidental malfunctions and leakages in these networks. This creates more demands on freshwater resources, which are becoming increasingly limited due to global warming and population growth, as well as the economic loss of the treatment cost of that water and damage to public infrastructure.

The water-saving Hydro Heroes application allows Azerbaijani citizens to send information and images of water leaks with the exact geographical location from their mobile phones directly to the relevant agency, and to get feedback on the status of fixing this leak. This application will help to significantly reduce the response time to fix the water distribution network leakages and thus water losses due to such leaks.

At the same time, the application includes entertaining and educational features related to water and water saving, including water tests and games, 360-degree videos of some water bodies of the Kura Basin in Azerbaijan, AR (Augmented Reality) function, water consumption calculator, etc.

The application will work on both Android and iOS platforms.

Hydro Heroes mobile application was developed with the support of the State Agency for Citizen Services and Social Innovations under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan and AzInTelecom LLC.

The project partners call on all smartphone users to download the Hydro Heroes application and make an important contribution to efforts to eliminate water loss.