St-George's University, Grenada June 24-25, 2008
The Grenada National Water Information System Workshop was held at St George’s University in Grenada on June 23 and 24, 2008. It was hosted during the 4th Caribbean Environmental Forum. Background information to the CARIWIN project was provided and the context was set for the pertinence of a National Water Information System (NWIS) for Grenada. The workshop was an opportunity for data collectors, data users and stakeholders to meet and engage in the early phases of development of the Grenada NWIS. An information gathering exercise was conducted with the participants to permit the system programmer to begin structuring the database. The next steps in the NWIS process were identified.
Presentations were made by the following professionals from the water resources management field: Dr. Lystra Fletcher-Paul, Land and Water Office, FAO-UN; Jim Joseph, Consultant and Senior Programmer/Analyst, Government of St-Lucia; Bano Mehdi, Research Associate, BCWRM, McGill University; Kailas Narayan, Chief Hydrologist, CIMH; Catherine Senecal, Professional Associate, BCWRM, McGill University; Trevor Thompson, Land Use Officer, Ministry of Agriculture.
The data providers groups (Ministry of Agriculture and the Meteorological Office at Point Salines International Airport) and the data users groups (Caribbean Youth Environmental Network and St George’s University) completed the questionnaire provided, which will allow the database developer to begin structuring the NWIS database.
The next steps that should be taken in the successful development of the NWIS following this workshop were identified as follows:
1. Completion of the questionnaires from absent data collectors and data users
2. Compilation of all of the data by the consultants
3. Assessment of the Agency in which the NWIS will be housed
4. Discussion of a National Committee of data providers
5. Determination of the data administrator
6. Determine when the programmers should be brought back
7. Presentation of Shape files and other Raster images to consultants for commencement of database development
It was agreed that two focus groups should be formed to support the Ministry of Agriculture in moving forward with the NWIS. These would be comprised of key persons from various institutions and brought together by email communication. These groups are the NWIS Data Collection (NWIS-DC) and the NWIS Institutional Framework (NWIS-IF).