A Water-Related Web-Based Information System for the Sustainable Development of the Mekong Delta

One goal of the WISDOM (Water-related Information System for the Sustainable development of the Mekong Delta) project lies in the development and implementation of an innovative water information system containing all the outcomes and results of the different research disciplines involved in the bi-lateral German-Vietnamese project. The topics stem from natural and social sciences and cover all major issues that come into play in an Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) system. In line with the IWRM principles, the envisaged information system communicates all research results to local stakeholders and decision makers. It is a web-based geo information system, additionally incorporating non-geographic data such as statistics, literature and reports, legal documents, institutional mappings and others. One major challenge, therefore, lies in the management of heterogeneous data for easy access, so that non-GIS expert users can easily find information to support them in their decision-making. This chapter gives an overview of the main requirements that constitute the system’s architecture and describes the layered architecture with its data management tier, logic tier and presentation tier. A short discussion on the sustainable operation, after the project ends, is also given in the outlook section.