In many of the Caribbean Islands, groundwater has been developed as a necessity when no surface water supplies are available or sufficient for local requirement. In this framework, strengthening professional capacities in support of the sustainable management of groundwater resources has been expressed by Member States as a necessity for the sub-region.

The Short Course on Groundwater Data Collection and Interpretation for Caribbean Countries is part of the capacity building efforts that the IHP-LAC is promoting for technical and professional staff from the water sector in the Caribbean region. In this opportunity the course convened participants from Antigua y Barbuda, Barbados, Bahamas, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, Saint Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago as well as a number of local participants.

This course originally designed by the UNESCO-IHE Institute, has been adapted to the Caribbean context with the aim of enhancing capacities of Caribbean professionals in hydrogeology and water resources management on data collection and monitoring tasks. In particular, it provided the principles of groundwater data collection and monitoring and the use of software to process and analyse the information by providing tools to: understand and interpret hydro(geo)logical time series and spatial data; understand the underlying principles of methods applied to groundwater exploration and monitoring; plan a groundwater investigation programme and to interpret the results of such a programme; learn methods and procedures used in groundwater monitoring and design a groundwater monitoring network and to assess the required measurement frequencies.

It will also be an opportunity for knowledge sharing and identifying areas for synergies among water professionals in the Caribbean.