MEXICO : Technical assistance to the implementation of a National Water Information System

The Mexican Water Law of 29 April 2004 (Ley de Aguas Nacionales) stipulates that "planning and national programming of water resources will be based on a National System (SINA), and Regional Water Information Systems (SIRAs)".

In 2004, CONAGUA carried out a feasibility study with IOWater technical support in order to define :
* a vision of the SINA and SIRAs in the medium term (main tasks, targeted public, types and fields of data and information to be managed, etc.);
* the organizational and inter-institutional tools to be developed and the various essential technical aspects of the project;
* a multiyear action program and a detailed plan for the first two years.

In 2005, the "SINA /SIRA project" started its implementation phase in the framework of the feasibility study and with IOWater renewed technical support.
- At the organizational level, an inter-institutional federal working group “the Water Topical Group” was officially created, gathering the main institutions concerned at the federal level: CONAGUA; SEMARNAT (Governmental Secretariat in charge of the Environment), INEGI (Cartographic and Statistical Institute responsible, in particular, for standardizing the Mexican sectoral information systems), etc. So far, this topical group has become the coordinating structure for interinstitutional operations related to water data development and management in Mexico.
- A number of specialized sub-groups have been set up and have proceeded with the analysis enabling to define the future Mexican common data exchange language "Administrative and institutional context" ; "Surface waters" ; - "Groundwater" ; "Water quality" ; "Climatology/meteorology" ; "Urban hydraulics" ; "Rural hydraulics"

After intermediate management by the Planning Department, in 2006 CONAGUA implemented a new management of water information systems specifically devoted to the preparation of the projects implemented for SINAS and SIRAS, and to the information, the animation and the coordination between the specialized sub-groups.