Manila Bay Integrated Information Management System to be Updated

Tagaytay City, Philippines — Representatives from the offices of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) Regions III, IV and the National Capital Region together with representatives from the provincial governments of Batangas, Bataan and Cavite have agreed to update their shared Integrated Information Management System for Manila Bay (IIMS).The group aims to encode available data by early June 2010, in time for the planned PEMSEA workshop on extracting, summarizing and depicting information from the data using IIMS.Emphasis will be placed on updating the database with data on water quality, pollution sources, biological habitat and resources, hazards, governance and socioeconomics from the Manila Bay Area.The action plan was the culminating activity of a training workshop on the Integrated Information Management System conducted from 23-26 February 2010 by DENR and PEMSEA. Thirty-three participants from the central office and various regional offices of the Philippine DENR around Manila Bay, the provincial governments of Batangas, Bataan and Cavite and De La Salle University in Lipa, Batangas completed the training course. The training workshop trained regional and provincial staff newly-designated for IIMS and updated staff previously trained in IIMS on the updated system which is now capable of handling river basin as well as State of the Coasts variables. Topics included database fundamentals, installation of IIMS, IIMS's data structure and various data tables, data classification, encoding and importing into IIMS.The members of the group also established an e-group to coordinate their efforts and have trained other personnel in their respective offices in the operation of the IIMS.The Manila Bay Area Environmental Atlas, which was published in October 2007, has been recognized as a value-added product of the IIMS.