SOME citizens’ reaction to the issue of sea-level rise and related seawall overtopping has oftentimes been ambivalent. While they may agree something would eventually have to be done, we often hear remarks such as: “We’ll have to leave that one to future generations.” With the recent overtopping on the West Coast of Demerara, it certainly seems, far from this being our children’s challenge, that the time to look systematically at our sea defenses is coming.

Social media was rife with images of overtopping this weekend, the awesome energy of the ocean on full display. Overtopping is nothing new, however, and there has certainly been an acknowledgement that climate change is causing sea- level rise. But there have been recent studies which add details to the broad strokes we already know, and it is important to make them known.

CNN recently featured an article about sea-level rise due to global warming, which focused specifically on the impact Greenland’s glaciers are having. The numbers are stunning: during the 1990s around 34 gigatons (or 34 billion metric tons) of water were released into the ocean annually, due to glacial melting, but since the early 2000s that number has skyrocketed to 280 gigatons!

The article goes on to say that in real terms, that equates to enough freshwater for every person on earth to drink 107 litres of water a day, every single day. Can you imagine! This means that there must truly be massive melting in the Arctic, fundamentally changing those landscapes and the broader world ecosystem.

Finally, what it relates that is perhaps most interesting is that this water is not being distributed evenly throughout the earth’s oceans. Rather, the majority gathers around the equatorial regions, increasing their rate of sea-level rise disproportionately. It is no wonder, then, that we are seeing more and more overtopping. As this trend, clearly biased towards impacting tropical countries such as our own, will certainly continue for the foreseeable future a national plan to strategically approach overtopping is certainly something we should consider. The administration has made several laudable efforts to boost our disaster preparedness and the Civil Defence Commission was on hand this weekend to help mitigate the damage.

If we put our minds to the task, there is little doubt we will identify the appropriate solutions and we would imagine a consultation with engineers from the Netherlands is in order, given that country’s perpetual efforts to reclaim land. The Dutch have recently emphasised, rather than building higher and higher walls, mitigation efforts which expand waterways and wetlands. This programme, entitled Room for the River, works with water rather than against it, recognising that more water means more space may have to be dedicated to containment.

Awareness that we will increasingly face such overtopping challenges is the first step we have for many years striven for, but this must be matched by an effort to identify potential solutions. In time, these conversations must lead to broad strategic action to ensure we do not just address today’s overtopping, but expected future sea-level rises. Overtopping is a challenge we certainly can’t put off for “future generations” to address.