International Development
Coastal Resource Information System in Support of the Caribbean Planning for Adaptation to Climate Change (CPACC) Project
World Bank GEF
The Caribbean Planning for Adaptation to Global Climate Change (CPACC) project was a multi-year initiative funded through the World Bank Global Environment Facility. CPACC's objective is to support Caribbean countries in preparing to cope with the adverse effects of climate change, particularly the impacts of sea-level rise in coastal areas.
As part of the CPACC project, ESSA was engaged to design and implement a computerized information system for managing coastal resources and uses for each of the 12 participating Caribbean countries. ESSA designed a Coastal Resource Inventory System (CRIS) that provides a flexible environment in which each of the 12 countries can customize and maintain their own specific database of coastal resources.
The database for the CRIS has two linked components: a spatial database (stored in a GIS) and an attribute database (stored in a relational database). The information system consists of a simple "toolkit" of functions that provides users with basic querying and updating capabilities for both spatial and non-spatial data. Each country received a common set of tools, based upon a common database design, but with their own specific coastal resource inventory.
A key objective of the project was to develop the capacity in the participating countries to manage and use an environmental information system for better policy and decision making. To this end, ESSA provided two kinds of training: 1) in the repository agency of each country, individuals were trained to develop and modify the system; and 2) managers and decision makers were trained to use the system to improve coastal resource management.