Introducing Shared Vision Planning to the Dominican Republic
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA. This summer a team from the USACE’s Institute for Water Resources (IWR) comprised of Drs. William Logan, Jennifer Olszewski, and Guillermo Mendoza, led a training workshop in the Dominican Republic to help prepare a project management plan (PMP) using a Shared Vision Planning (SVP) process for the city of Santiago de Caballeros. SVP integrates traditional water resources planning processes with structured public participation and collaborative computer modeling. The engagement included CORASAAN (Corporación del Acueducto y Alcantarillado de Santiago, the city's water utility company), INDRHI (Instituto Nacional de Recursos Hidráulicos, the national water resources institute), the Engineering Department of the Catholic University of Madre Maestra, as well as stakeholders from irrigation districts and the Ministry of the Environment. Representatives from the hydropower industry were not present at this meeting but plans for their engagement were developed.
During the workshop, the Dominican PMP teams, with IWR assistance, developed a work plan for the sustainable management of water resources in the Yaque del Norte basin. The group developed a problem statement, objectives, metrics and a conceptual decision support model as part of the SVP process. The participants listed and prioritized the most important problems facing the upper, middle, and lower sub-basins within the Yaque del Norte basin. Two examples of the problems they brought up include raw wastewater flowing into streams feeding irrigation channels, and irrigation channels with severe sedimentation. In fact, the team members had an opportunity to see some of the issues in person during a site visit to a location where an irrigation channel is experiencing severe sedimentation.