The CatchMod toolbox: easy and guided access to ICT tools for Water Framework Directive implementation.

Abstract

Web-based toolboxes are handy tools to inform experienced users of existing software in their disciplines. However, for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, a much more diverse public (water managers, consultancy firms, scientists, etc.) will ask for a very wide diversity of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools. It is obvious that the users of a web-based ICT-toolbox providing all this will not be experts in all of the disciplines and that a toolbox for ICT tools for Water Framework Directive implementation should thus go beyond just making interesting web-links. To deal with this issue, expert knowledge is brought to the users through the incorporation of visitor-geared guidance (materials) in the Harmoni-CA toolbox. Small workshops of expert teams were organized to deliver documents explaining why the tools are important, when they are required and what activity they support/perform, as well as a categorization of the multitude of available tools. An integration of this information in the web-based toolbox helps the users to browse through a toolbox containing tools, reports, guidance documents and interesting links. The Harmoni-CA toolbox thus provides not only a virtual toolbox, but incorporates a virtual expert as well.