CIMH head says management and conservation efforts not being sustained

Principal of the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) Dr David Farrell says the biggest challenge facing water management and conservation efforts in the region is that projects in this area are not being sustained.

He said this was the case even though many regional governments and non-governmental organisations talk about the importance of water resource management.

“We get investments but we are not sustaining at the rate that we really need to do. It is really incumbent on national governments and regional institutions and development partners to come up with a strategy to work with us to build out these networks [and] to sustain these networks.

“That also requires an integration of public sector, private sector, and academia building out these models, and building out comprehensive complete solutions to this problem,” Dr Farrell said on Tuesday as he delivered remarks at the opening ceremony for the upcoming Hydrological Status and Outlook System (HydroSOS) Caribbean Implementation Plan Workshop, which will be hosted by the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH) in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

The CIMH head also underscored the need for a wider conversation on what water conversation really means for countries in this part of the world.

“We tend to look at water resources within a narrow space, but the conversation is really a much broader space. It’s really about not just water resources but about how we manage flooding, how we manage resources, and how we manage a number of [other] things that we are seeing more frequently in the Caribbean,” he said.

“Over the years, we have seen the impact of [Hurricane] Matthew, we’ve seen the impacts on Dominica from a number of storms, Erika, Maria, we have seen Irma, and even here in Barbados in recent months and weeks, we have seen significant flooding occurring across the region.

“The costs of these things become extremely important – the impacts on economies, livelihoods, and the future. The HydroSOS provides us with a mechanism where we can start addressing water in its totality, as far as I’m concerned,” Dr Farrell added.

HydroSOS, which is overseen by the WMO Hydrological Assembly, aims to provide crucial information needed to help water users understand the current status of the world’s freshwater systems and adapt to changes by harnessing new technologies and managing water resources with science-based information.

Dr Farrell said this is of significant importance to the Caribbean and the drastic climate conditions being experienced in the region.

“HydroSOS is supposed to focus on not just the way we manage water resources, but really the way we manage water and how we build early warning systems to deal with the whole challenge of water. A few decades ago [when] we talked about these types of systems in the region, we would probably not necessarily get the type of feedback that you want. The focus was really on tropical storms and wind and so on.

“So it’s really good that we have shifted the focus a little bit. Not to move away from winds, but to engage in a broader conversation on resilience building and resilience building on water,” the CIMH head said. (SB)