WRA Highlights Climate Change as Critical Threat to Water Security

The Water Resources Authority (WRA) has pointed to the continued effects of climate change as a significant threat to Jamaica’s water resources and industries relying on them.

Deputy Managing Director, Geoffrey Marshall, told JIS News that increasingly erratic rainfall patterns and rising sea levels remain major concerns.

“In terms of impacts of climate change on water resources, the main threats would be extreme events, whether it’s precipitation [and] flooding or drought [and] lack of rain,” he said.

“We’re used to the wet season being in May and October and the dry season in December to January or February. But now, with climate change, you might see, which we’ve seen before, where [for example] the rain expected in May 2015 didn’t come at all when we had [the] big drought [that year]. That really led to a stressful situation, and then the rain you expect in October you might get less of it than expected,” Mr. Marshall added.

Regional shifts in rainfall distribution have been observed, posing a growing threat to agriculture and farming practices across Jamaica.

“For example, you might see less rain happening in Portland and more rain happening in Westmoreland. These changes may, over time, impact agriculture [and]… farms where [farmers] expect rain at one time and there’s no rain, so the crops are impacted, [or] they expected no rain and the rain comes [and] again [they] are impacted. So those shifts in precipitation patterns are one concern,” Mr. Marshall said.

Beyond shifting rainfall patterns, the WRA warns that saline intrusion – driven by rising sea levels and human activity – poses a growing threat to Jamaica’s freshwater aquifers and long-term water availability.

“The impact of saline intrusion is something that’s always a concern. There’s both the anthropogenic or human cause of intrusion, where people have been overpumping in the lower Rio Cobre and Southern Clarendon; but apart from that human aspect, is the sea-level rise aspect. Whereas the sea level rises, that also pushes the saline interface backwards into the aquifers. So that well might be at one location that was pumping fresh water, the sea level rises and through no fault of its own there is now more saline water in that well,” Mr. Marshall informed.

He underscored the importance of infrastructure such as the artificial groundwater recharge system in Innswood, St. Catherine – operated by the National Water Commission – in addressing the growing challenges posed by climate change.

“Those are concerns that happen from climate change that impact on water quality that we have to consider and find ways to address. That’s where the artificial groundwater recharge facility in Innswood has been in operation to try to deal with that particular impact in that region,” Mr. Marshall stated.