The Integrated Information Management System

Quezon City, Philippines — PEMSEA's Integrated Information Management System for Coastal and Marine Environments (IIMS) has been expanded, to include integrated management of river basins and coastal areas.

 

Previously, IIMS focused on the coastal and marine environments. It has now been expanded to include biological, social and economic features and activities in river basins. The new version of IIMS can be applied to coastal and marine areas, river basins or a combination of the two interconnected systems. In addition to the eight data categories of the earlier IIMS version (region/sites, biological, socioeconomic, demography, pollution sources, monitoring data and physiographic data), the latest version includes water resource management, natural and anthropogenic hazards, as well as hydrometeorological, soils and institutional data on both watershed and coastal areas. The IIMS has the capability to roll up or generate data at various levels of aggregation, such as watershed or river basin, sub-watershed, site, province, municipality or community. In addition, the IIMS query system and its linkage with a geographic information system has been improved allowing the users to generate information in a more user-friendly manner. A web-based version for IIMS river basin module was also developed so that sharing of information among users can be facilitated through the Internet.The upgrading of the IIMS for river basins was a collaboration of PEMSEA and the Philippines Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR). The system is being demonstrated in the Pampanga River Basin, a sub-basin of the Manila Bay Area.