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.