A GIS application for water management in remote communities

The present research is the first step towards upgrading the role of Cyprus rural communities aiming to perform domestic water management operations. At the beginning of the study all 356 municipalities and communities (that do not belong to any of the Cyprus Water Boards) were using domestic water in a far-from-reasonable way raising comments in the 2008 report of the General Auditor of the Republic of Cyprus. This research shows the methodology followed and the primary data collected from the 307 communities and municipalities. A database was designed and populated with the data collected. It has been integrated with existing hydrological databases and the GIS used by Cyprus Water Development Department. Preexisting stand-alone hydrological models also use part of the collected data. This paper presents findings related to water management issues in the rural communities and demonstrates how the GIS, enhanced with water management data, may be used by involved stakeholders towards a generative process of context and issue driven development and planning.