CARIWIN has endeavoured to create tools to facilitate the implementation of IWRM in the Caribbean.
Three tools have been developed for water managers in the region:
National Water Information Systems
A National Water Information System (NWIS) is a tool that can provide timely information to decision-makers and planners and, if used to its potential, can drastically improve their ability to address water resources and land use challenges.
The NWIS is an official repository for all hydrologic, climate, land, watershed, infrastructure and water related data. It is an extremely powerful qualitative and quantitative tool which allows not only the archiving of data, but also displays information in a very comprehensive and visual manner to give a snapshot of the water resources at any time, and any scale, from the national to watershed to parish to community levels. It allows for a review of information by all stakeholders including water users at the community level.
CARIWN supported the development and the launch of the Grenada NWIS. Currently, such systems are functional in Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, and St. Lucia. Other Caribbean countries are in the development phase.
Caribbean Precipitation and Drought Monitoring Network
This regional network hosted at the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) centralizes data and indices for the monitoring of drought and wet episodes in the Caribbean. The CDPMN output can be viewed on the CIMH website for the Caribbean basin drought monitor as well as a national level monitor for Barbados.
The launch of the CDPMN was timely as it was used to formulate drought alerts for the region in 2009 and 2010. Details are given in the poster Drought Early warning and Risk Reduction: A Case Study of the Caribbean Drought of 2009-2010.
CARIWIN launched the CDPMN in 2009.
Community Water Strategy Framework
CARIWIN aimed to synthesise key components of IWRM at the community level, and lessons learned from case studies, into a manageable process to guide the development of Community Water Strategies. A generic framework titled A Framework for Developing Community Water Strategies was produced. The framework proposed is based on a four-phase process of assessment, planning, implementation and monitoring, each associated with specific expected outputs. Several subcomponents are described in more detail under each phase.
This Framework, as well as country-specific documents for CARIWIN partner countries, were used in a capacity-building exercise during the 2010 CARIWIN Regional Seminar.