Accessed by a long winding tree-lined road, the houses, built in the 1970s and 1980s, are largely painted in a pastel shade. Dotted among fruit trees in their large backyards are large water tanks, mounted on concrete slabs.
The tanks are evidence that even this wealthy community is not insulated from the water pressure that is all over the Caribbean.
Residents fill the tanks from the mains for use at scheduled times by the water authority. But supply is often unreliable and low pressure affects those who live further up the slope.
Nunez says torrents happen regularly, with rain often blocked for all but a few hours during the night.
“Most of the time you have to buy food from outside or get food and buy bottled water to drink,” she said. “You use fragile containers. “
Patchy Infrastructure and Leaky Pipes
Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and St. Kitts and Nevis are all classified as scarce water, which the UN defines as countries with less than 1000 cubic meters per capita of renewable water resources per year.
The location of Barbados, which is only 350 cubic meters per person, is particularly heavy, according to Keithroy Halliday, general manager of the Barbados Water Authority.
While most people outside rural mountainous areas in the Caribbean are connected to the public water supply, old-fashioned infrastructure often needs to be repaired, meaning that severe loss of drinking water.
Alan Poon King, head of the Trinidad and Tobago Water and Sewerage Authority (WASA), says the facility is losing as much as 60 million gallons of water per day from leaking infrastructure – and that many again lost with problems like leaking taps on private buildings.
A similar picture in Jamaica, which Peter Clarke, managing director of the country’s Water Resources Authority, says is suffering from “a real loss of water that has been extracted and should be treated. delivery, but it does not reach the end user because of the aging infrastructure – it is leaking, it is crushed. “
Climate change increases stress
If these structural problems are not addressed, things are likely to deteriorate as the planet warms.
“There are many other problems facing the Caribbean water sector and climate change is exacerbating the underlying conditions,” said Adrian Cashman, who sits on the global technical advisory committee for Com- World Water partnership.
Officials say drought conditions across the region over the past two years have meant there has not been enough water to replenish waters at normal levels.
“Last summer [in Jamaica] we went through a severe drought, “Clarke said.” It was a challenge for the water supply providers. “
In Trinidad and Tobago, Poon King said it was difficult to measure the impact of climate change, but it was an ongoing challenge: “We have seen less rain that could be anywhere between 10 -20% in the dry season. . “
Halliday said Barbados’ water supply has also been severely affected by climate change. All of the renewable water resources within Barbados come from water, he explained, and in 2019 the country saw the lowest levels on record since 1947.
Climate and Living Whiskey Finance
Standards of living are very high in the Caribbean region, with most countries defined by the UN as “middle-income.” This excludes them from a lot of international development funding. At the same time, high levels of public debt combined with their vulnerability to climate change are making it difficult to invest in infrastructure.
However, one of the region’s major water projects funded by the Green Climate Fund (GCF), which was set up to help developing countries cope with climate change, is underway. currently on in Grenada.
Project leader Hans-Werner Theisen says about half of the € 45 million allocated by the GCF to the project will be spent improving infrastructure such as water tanks, reservoirs and pipes. There will also be a financial incentive to cut waste water from sectors such as agriculture and tourism, which are among the largest buyers of water.
Encouraging the public to use water wisely is a key part of the project in Grenada, too. “What I think is very important is that everyone, every citizen, can contribute to water saving measures, so we need to be water conscious in everyday life,” said Theisen.
Elsewhere, Barbados has passed laws banning the use of drinking water for car washing, gardening, swimming pool filling and similar activities. As in Jamaica, people are encouraged to use wastewater for such activity.
Rain, rain everywhere …
Despite day-to-day water pressure, the DA’s 2017 Water report showed that most people in the Caribbean have access to a safe water supply – if it’s irregular.
But in Trinidad, an infuriated Nunez lives on an island with 360 views of the turquoise waters and nothing coming out of the tap.
“Water and air are the things that people need to live,” she said. “I can’t understand how I am on an island surrounded by water, that they can’t use some way to survive. use – dehydration – the water. “
According to 2019 figures, the region will receive about 12% of its water supply from dewatering. Poon King in Trinidad and Tobago said that figure is 20% but that expanding this is a problem due to high energy costs.
For Nunez, water scarcity is out of her country’s development status. Trinidad and Tobago have benefited from their oil reserves. But despite its high income, it struggles to supply enough of these most basic requirements.
“There are glass buildings and big international universities and airports and everything like that, but there’s no water,” she said. “We have the latest architectural structures and homes and homes, but indoor sanitary ware and kitchens just seem to be on display.”
Posted by permission of Deutsche Welle.