Development of a national water resources database

#SDGAction43050

Description

Intro

In light of the major environmental challenges facing the world, the United Nations has developed a framework for environmental statistics to produce data and statistics to support environmental policies and contribute to the success of the SDG’s 2030. Water statistics are one of the most important components of this multi-purpose statistical framework as water and sanitation services are at the core of sustainable development and occupies high tier on the international agenda. This is because of the interlinkages relationship between water and sanitation and other development issues, in addition to the extreme importance of water data and statistics in supporting decision-making processes, planning and managing water policies and strategies

Objective of the practice

Bahrain National Water Resource Database (BWRDB) was developed to systematically collect, catalog, provide and disseminate systematic water statistics of the highest quality and methodologically consistent with the proposed international framework for monitoring and assessing progress towards the implementation of targets and indicators of SDG 6 and other relevant development goals as well as supporting decision-making and water policy planning.<br />
The proposed integrated and multi-purpose conceptual framework of the United Nations is the basis for developing and structuring the national water database, to be consistent, coherent, comparable and expandable internationally. At a later stage, this comprehensive information system was developed to meet the regional and national needs of the Gulf Unified Water Strategy and the Bahrain National Water Strategy. The development process included introducing new components for water quality, groundwater levels, water use efficiency, water demand management and other data related to climate, natural, demographic and economic data and indicators related to water as well as the introduction of several variables that allow the production of coherent quantitative indicators and standards on water and sustainable development.

Partners

The main stakeholders are the Information and e-Government Authority due to its responsibility as a national statistical office in Bahrain, and the Water Resources Council which consist of all government entity responsible of water in Bahrain

Implementation of the Project/Activity

The database consists of two master files, 13 tables or components, 31 sub-components, and 440 variables or statistical topics. The first master file entitled "Water Variables" consists of ten tables (components) covering several water topics including renewable freshwater, fresh water abstraction and use from various water sources, disaggregation to key water demand sectors, water supply industry including the proportion of connected population to drinking water supply network, sewage in terms of total generation, collection and treatment and the proportion of population with access to improved sanitation services. The first master file also includes aspects related to water demand management, water quality according to its sources and water levels in major aquifers, data and indicators on water infrastructure and labor force in water sectors.
The second main file ("Supplementary Variables") includes three tables (components) related to the natural, demographic, climatic and economic variables related to water and, as mentioned above, the database contains some additional variables and indicators related to water. Appendix A outlines the general structural framework of the national water database, while appendix B provides a description of the major and sub-component codes and statistical topics listed in Annex A. Long-term annual averages, actual annual values or percentages, represent the temporal reference of the data. Most of the data in the BWRDB are available as time series data for up to 38 years (1979 - 2016); these are classified and itemized by total, sector used, treatment method, level of treatment, method of desalination, etc. For some variables, the time series data range from 5 to 15 years and efforts to complete data collection, compilation, analysis and compilation are ongoing in parallel with efforts to develop the overall structural framework of the national water database.

Results/Outputs/Impacts

• Disseminate systematic water statistics of the highest quality and methodologically consistent with the proposed international framework for monitoring and assessing progress towards the implementation of targets and indicators of SDG 6 and other relevant development goals as well as supporting decision-making and water policy planning.
• Goal6 report for Monitoring its target and indicators

Sustainability and replicability

The BWRDB is viewed as a continuous work-on-progress project, that is to say, it will always be scalable and modernized

Conclusions

As a further step, linking the BWRDB with GIS-based applications, modeling applications, and other applications modules, and the techniques for linking the main and sub-tables together, building a system to facilitate data processing and analysis, preparing and extracting the necessary technical and statistical reports (Built-in-reporting tool) to support the decision-making process associated with water policies and strategies.

SDGS & Targets