Chalsey Gill An­tho­ny

BEL­MOPAN, Be­lize, May 22, CMC – “At the time I was liv­ing in Ja­maica, there was no rain for quite a few months. There were very se­vere wa­ter re­stric­tions where we would on­ly re­ceive wa­ter once a week” says Dr Ayan­na Alexan­der, a med­ical doc­tor and pub­lic health pro­fes­sion­al from T&T.

Dr. Alexan­der has seen first­hand the dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects of wa­ter scarci­ty on the health of her pa­tients. Work­ing in the pe­di­atric emer­gency de­part­ment, she ob­served that chil­dren, in par­tic­u­lar, were vul­ner­a­ble to de­hy­dra­tion and gas­troin­testi­nal ill­ness­es.

“It was very dif­fi­cult, es­pe­cial­ly for those younger chil­dren who can­not adapt and re­cov­er fast from the ill­ness­es.” But she ad­mits that at that time, she did not make the link to cli­mate change.

Dr Alexan­der com­plet­ed an in­tern­ship with the Be­lize-based Caribbean Com­mu­ni­ty Cli­mate Change Cen­tre (CC­C­CC) in March, a re­quire­ment of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies Cli­mate Change and Health Lead­ers Fel­low­ship pro­gramme, un­der the EU/Car­i­fo­rum Strength­en­ing Cli­mate Re­silient Health Sys­tems in the Caribbean Project.

“It’s frus­trat­ing to see big­ger coun­tries with more re­sources not meet­ing their re­duc­tion goals, but as Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS), we can use our block to make pos­i­tive changes,” said Dr Alexan­der, who shared her per­spec­tive dur­ing her time in Be­lize.

“We can’t just sit back and wait for change to hap­pen, we need to be an ex­am­ple for the world. Mov­ing away from a re­ac­tive stand­point on health and fo­cus­ing on so­cial and en­vi­ron­men­tal de­ter­mi­nants can make us a health­i­er and more re­silient pop­u­la­tion.”

The Caribbean is no stranger to the dev­as­tat­ing ef­fects of cli­mate change, and the im­pact on the re­gion’s wa­ter re­sources has been se­vere, pos­ing a sig­nif­i­cant threat to pub­lic health.

In­creas­ing­ly, fre­quent and in­tense storms and hur­ri­canes, ris­ing sea lev­els, and droughts all con­tribute to wa­ter pol­lu­tion, con­t­a­m­i­na­tion, de­hy­dra­tion, and the spread of wa­ter­borne dis­eases.

Hur­ri­cane Maria’s im­pact on Puer­to Ri­co in 2017 is a prime ex­am­ple of how dam­ag­ing wa­ter sup­ply sys­tems can leave hos­pi­tals and clin­ics with­out safe drink­ing wa­ter, re­sult­ing in a surge of wa­ter­borne ill­ness­es that place vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions at risk of se­ri­ous health is­sues.

In ad­di­tion to hur­ri­canes, coastal flood­ing and ris­ing sea lev­els can cause salt wa­ter to con­t­a­m­i­nate fresh­wa­ter sources, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult for peo­ple to ac­cess potable wa­ter sources. Wa­ter scarci­ty caused by cli­mate-in­duced dry pe­ri­ods al­so leads to de­creased hy­giene and san­i­ta­tion prac­tices that ex­ac­er­bate the spread of wa­ter­borne and food­borne ill­ness­es.

“When wa­ter is scarce, farm­ers have dif­fi­cul­ty pro­vid­ing food,” says Dr Alexan­der, adding, “we have had in­stances where farm­ers have been wa­ter­ing plants with un­clean wa­ter which in­creas­es those po­ten­tial risks for ill­ness­es.”

The quan­ti­ty and qual­i­ty of fresh­wa­ter sources like sur­face and ground­wa­ter are al­so be­ing af­fect­ed, lead­ing to short­ages and in­creased costs to ob­tain wa­ter. Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) in the re­gion, which re­ly heav­i­ly on rain­wa­ter har­vest­ing, are par­tic­u­lar­ly vul­ner­a­ble to the ef­fects of de­creased rain­wa­ter avail­abil­i­ty.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, ex­treme weath­er events can lead to pow­er out­ages, dis­rupt­ing the op­er­a­tion of wa­ter treat­ment plants and mak­ing it chal­leng­ing for peo­ple to ac­cess wa­ter.

As the scorch­ing sun beats down in Bar­ba­dos, the is­land is fac­ing a se­vere drought, lead­ing to the Bar­ba­dos Wa­ter Au­thor­i­ty to im­ple­ment com­mu­ni­ty wa­ter tanks in re­mote parish­es such as St John, St Lucy, and St An­drew.

“The un­cer­tain­ty of find­ing wa­ter at the com­mu­nal tank left peo­ple un­able to wash or show­er. Some even had to re­ly on go­ing to the homes of friends or rel­a­tives to get ready for work. It was a dai­ly strug­gle,’’ said the chair of the Glob­al Wa­ter Part­ner­ship-Caribbean (GWP-C)’s tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee, Dr Adri­an Cash­man, an ex­pert in wa­ter re­sources man­age­ment.

As the im­pact of cli­mate change on the Caribbean’s wa­ter re­sources con­tin­ues to wors­en, Dr Cash­man high­lights some of the in­ter­con­nect­ed gaps that the re­gion faces and the need to in­cor­po­rate cli­mate change pre­dic­tions in­to hy­drol­o­gy mod­els to bet­ter un­der­stand the im­pact of chang­ing weath­er pat­terns. Long-term plan­ning is need­ed as well as re­con­sid­er­a­tion of the re­gion’s ap­proach to waste­water man­age­ment.

De­spite these chal­lenges and gaps, Dr Cash­man re­mains op­ti­mistic that so­lu­tions can be found.

“There has been a grow­ing mo­men­tum in the Caribbean to ad­dress wa­ter man­age­ment is­sues and in­no­v­a­tive so­lu­tions are be­ing de­vel­oped to adapt to a chang­ing cli­mate. Ef­forts are al­so be­ing made to mo­bilise fi­nanc­ing to im­ple­ment so­lu­tions, in­di­cat­ing progress in the re­gion’s wa­ter man­age­ment prac­tices,” said Dr Cash­man.

The link­ages be­tween cli­mate change, wa­ter re­sources, and pub­lic health are clear, and it is cru­cial to pri­ori­tise the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of wa­ter for all peo­ple in the re­gion.

Most re­cent­ly, the CC­C­CC, un­der the Eu­ro­pean Union-fund­ed In­tra-ACP GC­CA+ Pro­gramme in the Caribbean: En­hanc­ing Cli­mate Re­silience in Car­i­fo­rum coun­tries, in­stalled sev­er­al wa­ter stor­age tanks across St. Kitts and Nevis in schools, health cen­ters, and dis­as­ter shel­ters.

Di­rec­tor of En­vi­ron­ment in St Kitts-Nevis, June Hugh­es, says cli­mate change has made wa­ter short­ages com­mon in the twin-is­land Fed­er­a­tion.

“The tanks pro­vide a plan B and sec­ondary source. Pre­vi­ous­ly, what was hap­pen­ing at schools is that once the wa­ter was cut, they would have to send school chil­dren home be­cause you can­not op­er­ate with­out wa­ter.”

The wa­ter cri­sis in the Caribbean is a sig­nif­i­cant con­cern for schools, as short­ages can dis­rupt dai­ly op­er­a­tions and com­pro­mise stu­dent well-be­ing.

The CC­C­CC said that by pro­vid­ing al­ter­na­tive wa­ter sources, “we can pro­tect ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties and en­sure safe learn­ing en­vi­ron­ments.

“As cli­mate change con­tin­ues to im­pact wa­ter re­sources, pos­ing threats to pub­lic health, it is im­per­a­tive that we take ac­tion. Let us ad­vo­cate for sus­tain­able prac­tices, sup­port wa­ter con­ser­va­tion ini­tia­tives, and ac­tive­ly en­gage in ef­forts to re­duce our car­bon foot­print.

“To­geth­er, we can make a dif­fer­ence, safe­guard our com­mu­ni­ties, and pre­serve our pre­cious wa­ter re­sources for a safer and health­i­er fu­ture,” it added”. (CMC)