BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC) – The Caribbean, regarded as among the most vulnerable regions in the world to the impacts of water-related hazards, has embarked on a new initiative to strengthen hydrology, water resources management, disaster risk reduction and climate resilience.

With several countries in the region being classified as water scarce and others experience varying levels of water stress, organisers of the three-day HydroSOS Caribbean Implementation Plan Workshop that ended in Barbados on Thursday, said that the new initiative will help the region deal with the impact of tropical cyclones, floods, droughts and ecosystem degradation.

Organised by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in partnership with the Barbados-based Caribbean Institute for Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH), the three-day workshop utilised a collaborative approach to develop an implementation strategy for sustainable water resources management.

“The HydroSOS Caribbean Implementation Workshop represented an excellent opportunity for Caribbean nations to collaborate to improve understanding of the status and outlook of water resources in the Caribbean,” said Sabu Best, Director of the Barbados Meteorological Services.

He said the workshop will initiate the development of a comprehensive roadmap and action plan, and serve as a catalyst for regional cooperation and resilience building.

CIMH principal, Dr David Farrell, said that the HydroSOS Caribbean initiative will play a crucial role in addressing the complex challenges presented by hydrological hazards in an era of climate change.

He said this would be done by “ensuring Caribbean Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are kept informed so that we can prepare and protect our societies and economies from adverse impacts”

Farrell said the workshop fostered a deeper understanding of water resources management and facilitated the development of effective adaptation strategies.

HydroSOS is led by WMO and aims at building a trusted operational global framework capable of assessing the current status of surface and groundwater hydrological systems and predicting how they will change in future.

It seeks to provide global, regional, national, and local scale standardised hydrological information to understand and monitor the world’s freshwater and groundwater systems, and to adapt to changes in the water cycle and in water storage.

“This represents a significant step towards building resilience and adapting to the changing climate and will allow Caribbean governments to make informed decisions to better manage hydrological resources, enhance early warning systems for water related hazards, and mitigate threats to water security to create a safer and more resilient Caribbean.

“We can not manage what we do not measure. The Caribbean and the world need HydroSOS,” said Alberto Zúñiga Mora, WMO Regional Hydrological Adviser IV for North America, Central America, and the Caribbean.

Head of Hydrology and Water Resources Services Division at the WMO, Dr Hwirin Kim, said the launch is especially timely in a year when the El Niño event is expected to have a major impact on precipitation patterns and associated floods and droughts in the region.

“We are at the end of the 2023 North Atlantic hurricane season, a season which brought damaging rainfall and flooding to a number of Caribbean nations. The HydroSOS Caribbean Project will complement the international Early Warnings for All Initiative, which has prioritised Small Island Developing States,” said Kim.