Abstract:
Reliable information is of utmost importance for
planning and decision making. Various challenges face the water
resources management sector in regard to water resources
information management. The main challenges include lack of well
defined processes of information flow between various organizations
and different storage formats hindering proper information sharing
resulting to duplication of information. At present Water Resources
Management Authority (WRMA) uses emails, cds and dvds to send
the data once it is collected. It is then added into existing databases at
the regional or headquarters offices. The study sort to address this
problem by developing a web-based water resources information
management system with an aim of providing a proper water
information collection, storage and dissemination platform. The
proposed system is composed of three subcomponents: a single
database, web-based mapping component and a website. The
database provided is centralized, mapping component provides tools
for data updating and visualization while the website hosts the
mapping component and also provides additional information related
to water resources use. To develop the system stable GIS softwares
and other Open Source softwares were used. The system contained
surface water, ground water and watershed protection information.
Adoption of the system will aid WRMA in fulfilling its mandate of
regulating water use nationally and regionally by effectively
managing the valuable water resource information.
