The IHP Secretariat makes WINS freely available to Member States, water stakeholders and partners, with the aim of encouraging contributors to share data on water. WINS offers different sets of spatial information (i.e. layers) that can be overlaid to create tailored maps. WINS also consists of a larger knowledge-sharing platform, which brings together information on national water policies and any other water related publications, in various formats. Finally, WINS is a networking hub that connect water stakeholders and promote experience-sharing. On WINS, transparency and respect of authorship is guaranteed as all information shared by contributors benefit from metadata in a standardized format and from a UNESCO Digital Object Identifier (DOI). This allows for an accurate identification and crediting of any contribution, and easy later sharing. The overall objective is to foster knowledge sharing and access to information, by making information freely available to anyone. The platform is contributing to close the gap between North and South in terms of access to knowledge. Overall, it aims to support decision-making and deriving policy recommendations through building capacity for sound water resources governance. More information on IHP-WINS is available here. 

Partner: UNESCO International Hydrological Programme (IHP)

Target Segment of the Conference: Hydrological Data Management

Geographical coverage:

Global

Connection to the development and delivery of a hydrological service for prosperity:

Effective resource management requires accurate information as a basis for planning, operational activities, monitoring the condition and trend of the resource, and for many other purposes. However, many parts of the information base required for IWRM are outside the areas in which Hydrological Services traditionally have tended to work. This implies that a National Hydrology Service needs proper institutional development to meet new challenges and must develop new capabilities and/or establish partnerships or “strategic alliances” with complementary agencies, or become increasingly marginalized.

WINS links the physical resources availability and quality to population growth and other demographic changes (in particular urbanization) and agricultural and industrial expansion following changes in consumption and production patterns of water.

Building on success of the World-wide Hydrogeological Mapping and Assessment Programme (WHYMAP - created in 1999), UNESCO-IHP aims at bringing different water stakeholders (agencies, Member States, etc.) together to share clear and  understandable water-related information from various sources on IHP-WINS. The platform will contribute to worldwide efforts towards science-based, sound management of our planet’s water resources. for decision-making and deriving policy recommendations.