River Awareness Kits

Clients

• Mekong River Commission (Mekong River)
• Canadian Space Agency (Nile River)
• Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) (Limpopo, Kunene, and Orange-Senqu rivers)
• Alberta Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (Athabasca River)

Locations

Southern Africa, Southeast Asia, Canada

Project Duration

January 2002 – December 2011

Background

River Awareness Kits are interactive, web-based tools designed to promote sustainable management of water resources within river basin organizations. These multi-media educational and awareness-raising tools provide training material for local, regional, and national stakeholders in different aspects of environmental and water management, particularly within transboundary river basins. Contact Hatfield to hear the details about Hatfield’s innovative approach and tools for supporting integrated water resources management (IWRM) and river basin authorities.

Hatfield believes in collaborating with national, provincial, and local level institutions and stakeholders to better understand the needs and risks associated with information and technology projects. Through the development of open source information management systems, Hatfield has facilitated information accessibility and exchange for a diverse group of stakeholders.

Hatfield has developed River Awareness Kits for the following river basins:

• Nile River, created as part of the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI)
• Limpopo River, created for the Limpopo River Commission (LIMCOM)
• Kunene River, created for the Kunene Permanent Joint Technical Committee (PJTC)
• Orange-Senqu River, created for the Orange-Senqu River Commission – (DVD version available upon request)
• Lower Mekong River, created for the Mekong River Commission
• Athabasca River, created for the Regional Aquatics Monitoring Program (RAMP)

Hatfield believes in collaborating with national, provincial, and local level institutions and stakeholders to better understand the needs and risks associated with information and technology projects. Through the development of open source information management systems, Hatfield has facilitated information accessibility and exchange for a diverse group of stakeholders.

Services Provided

To design and implement the River Awareness Kits described above, our technical staff fulfilled the following key functions:

• Extensive user needs assessments and training workshops at the local, national and basin-levels to establish design requirements and to assess the capacity of institutional and other users;
• Development and implementation of knowledge management tools (including an intranet portal, website, CD-ROM and interactive learning tools) designed to improve capacity regarding environmental management and to provide awareness raising tools;
• Developed and implemented technical remote sensing and GIS training sessions in synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) image processing, interpretation, and flood mapping;
• Developed four remote sensing case studies to enhance understanding of regional water systems, and environmental, wetland and land management aspects; and
• Developed and delivered communication and awareness-raising tools to disseminate the outputs of the projects to national and local level stakeholders.