From Cuban News Agency

Raining season starts in the Caribbean but drought could stay

HAVANA, Cuba, Jun 4 (acn) June 1 marked the beginning of the hurricane season for the Caribbean Area, which came along the rainy season, but forecasts say that rain will continue to be scarce.

This will cause water reserves to shrink affecting economic sectors and the populations of Caribbean island nations, specialists warned.

Predictions talk of a drier-than-normal rainy season this year with similar forecasts for 2016, which really means a serious challenge to the countries in this region.

Cedric Van Meerbeeck, a climatologist who attended in Saint Lucia a two-day forum of the Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), recalled dry year 2009, when conditions led to water rationing across many Caribbean islands, with low rainfall records reported in Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada, Barbados, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Guyana.

Saving water, using it in the most rational manner, and spreading information about the negative impact of drought as well as measures of response is a key program of action to counter the natural situation, and this is what the Caribbean island nation of Cuba is working on.

On Wednesday, the Cuban Newspaper Granma reported on a working of is Civil Defense Authority, in which the chief of that institution, Division General Ramon Pardo alerted that the hydraulic reality on the island is serious and may pose risk to human health if the necessary quality of water is not guaranteed.

Many Cuban communities have been supplied drinking water through cistern trucks given the exhaustion of water sources that provided water direct to homes. From November 2014 through April 2015, a total of 11 Cuban provinces have been hard hit by lack of rain, which directly affect reservoir levels.

According to Cuban meteorologist Abel Centella, who took part at the working session said that 75 percent of the country has felt the rainfall low, as 242 reservoirs under the management of the National Water Institute were only at 36 percent of their accumulation capacity.

The Civil Defense Chief called for joint work to minimize the drought impact and noted that despite measures in force, not everyone is fully aware of the danger posed by the natural phenomenon, which may hard hit sectors like agriculture, the industry and the services in general.

Meanwhile, at the meeting in Saint Lucia, meteorologists addressed this risk too, as they alerted that along with it, temperatures will increase over usual indicators in the Caribbean.

For some locals, like Saint Lucian farmer Anthony Herman the situation is simply frightening, he told the Inter-American Press Service, IPS. The farmer, who is board secretary and project coordinator of a cooperative said a response plan is crucial at this time, because he does not consider they have created the resilience necessary to fight drought, as they do not count on an appropriate water infrastructure.

Although the reality is the same for the region under the natural phenomena, each country is doing its bit according to existing capabilities, but the fact is that water, the most crucial resource ever for human life, becomes scarce and only rationality could give a response in the shortest term

For more on this story go to: http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/world/3131-raining-season-starts-in-the-caribbean-but-drought-could-stay

Conserving water is key

From The Barbados Advocate

The Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), in its June Regional Climate Outlook forum for the 2015 wet/hurricane season, warned Caribbean countries to prepare for a drier than normal hurricane season.

Forecasts for the 2015 wet season in the Caribbean, which runs from June to November, are that it will be drier than normal and a similar prediction has been issued for the 2016 dry season. While this prediction has been deemed as “serious” and “frightening” by some in the agricultural sector, not only in Barbados but across the region, it appears that there is a rather easy-going approach being taken by those in authority to such a prediction.

By now however, given this prediction, we in Barbados should be hearing of the need to conserve water or better yet, harvest whatever rainfall comes our way. According to the Barbados Water Authority, water conservation is the most cost-effective and environmentally sound way to reduce the demand for water, which will stretch our total water supply farther. And so, it is clear that greater water use efficiency is a must to get us through this dry period. So why are we yet to hear the authorities pushing water conservation campaigns?

To be fair though, a Caribbean Drought Training Workshop was held at the CIMH’s headquarters in Husbands, St. James back in January and the workshop attracted meteorologists and water resource managers from 12 countries in the region.

Dr. David Farrell, principal of the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology, revisited the 2009/10 drought event and associated impacts across the region, mentioning that it forced the Heads of Government to discuss coping strategies for such an event. Dr. Farrell indicated that this drought taught us that we in the region were not really ready for an event of this magnitude. As such, greater focus was placed on ensuring that Caribbean countries were better prepared to handle another episode of drought. There were also talks of developing an agriculture drought risk management plan.

It should also be noted that after the severe impacts of the 2009 to 2010 drought, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA) included drought as a hazard to be managed in the Caribbean; drought being a period of abnormally dry weather that persists long enough to produce a serious hydrologic imbalance, causing, for example, crop damage and shortages in the water supply.

So there are some agencies that are taking the bull by the horns and working to ensure that in a worst case scenario, there are some systems in place to give desirable outcomes.

However, there is still a need to have the water conservation message go out to all Barbadians in the clearest and most frank way possible, so that they can cut down on wasteful water practices. Given that drought conditions have the potential to exist, coupled with the fact that Barbados has been of late faced with a number of water shortage situations, it may be wise for officials to recommend water conservation measures to restrict use of water. These recommendations can include restrictions that limit hours of water use for certain activities and refresher tips on how to generally conserve water on a day-to-day basis.

As one author puts it, “Conserving water is particularly important when drought strikes, but it’s also a good habit to be in at all times for environmental reasons.” It is therefore high time that Barbadians do their part in conserving our precious liquid resource.

For more on this story go to: http://www.barbadosadvocate.com/newsitem.asp?more=editorial&NewsID=43825

IMAGE: www.dgs.ca.gov