GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) — Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretary General Dr Carla Barnett says climate change is profoundly impacting all aspects of life in the region, including the water supply.

“Sources of fresh water are under threat from climate variability contributing to an increase in both floods and droughts while sea-level rise is accelerating saltwater intrusion into underground aquifers,” Barnett said as she addressed the Caricom-Japan Friendship Year Event being held under the theme ‘Highlighting Past and Future Cooperation of the Caribbean Water Sector to Caricom’.

She told the ceremony that since establishing formal diplomatic relations in 1993 the region and Japan have endured a strong partnership, rooted in mutual respect and shared values, which has flourished over the years.

Barnett said that this friendship year also marks the 30th anniversary of the first Caricom-Japan consultation and now provides “an opportune time for us to reflect on our collaborative successes and future cooperation — especially, on this occasion, focusing on the development of the Caribbean water sector”.

Barnett said water is a critical resource for life, noting that, “some, not all of our Caricom member states, have been blessed with an abundance of freshwater resources such as rivers, waterfalls and lakes”.

She said increasingly, natural disasters — primarily hurricanes — also lead to floods, biodiversity and ecosystem loss, and damage to infrastructure.

“These impacts are compounded when debt burdens worsen with global external shocks, as we experience from time to time,” Barnett said, adding that water management challenges in the Caribbean are therefore significant.

“Firstly, across the region we are faced with ageing physical infrastructure, with many parts of our distribution systems that were built back to deep in the colonial era resulting today in high levels of what we euphemistically call ‘non-revenue’ water, whether through leakage or informal connections.

“This weakens our ability to meaningfully strengthen water governance and regulation of the water sector, [with] this [occurring] at the same time that population growth, rapid urbanisation, and economic development challenges are leading to increased demand for water.”

Barnett said that failure to address the challenges to the water sector would further jeopardise the region’s hard-fought progress on food and nutrition security, poverty reduction targets, and sustainable development.