–gov’t outlines plans to tackle situation in Regions Two, Three, Five and Six

A portion of revenue from the country’s oil and gas resources will be spent on building flood mitigation infrastructure for the future as the government moves to comprehensively tackle flooding on the coastland, particularly in Regions Two, Three, Five and Six.

The process to shield the coastland, which is six feet below sea level, from flooding started with a National Consultation on Strategic Flood Protection Measures with farmers, engineers and regional officials at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre, on Tuesday.
The government, in a PowerPoint presentation delivered by head of the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA), Lionel Wordsworth, articulated its plan to mitigate flooding in the identified regions.
The presentation, in essence, seeks to set in place comprehensive plans for each of the identified regions to mitigate flooding, open up more lands for agricultural purposes and reduce losses faced by farmers and residents as a result of flooding.

The works required to enable this include dredging of rivers, building drainage and irrigation structures, building embankments, creating water channels and integrating drainage and irrigation network to enable effective and efficient water management.
Vice-President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, who addressed the consultation, said that these plans will be refined through wide consultation, feasibility studies will be prepared and the government, apart from providing part financing, will move to secure funding from international institutions.

Farmers for years have complained that due to losses from flooding, at times, they are not in a position financially to return to their fields.
The farmers, engineers and regional officials at the consultations, in addition to making suggestions to the government to improve the plans articulated to them, said the vision of the government to comprehensively deal with the issue of flooding is commendable.

A delegation from Region Two was particularly appreciative of the government’s plan to dredge the mouth of the Pomeroon River. This project is expected to be completed before year end and, according to members of the Region Two delegation, along with other drainage and irrigation infrastructural works, it will enable the opening up of thousands of acres of land for farming.
The Pomeroon could also be a port for direct large-scale shipment of agriculture produce. The mouths of the Mahaica, Mahaicony and Abary rivers will also be dredged.

ACT NOW
The ambitious plans to mitigate flooding on the coastland, Dr. Jagdeo told the gathering, will require an enormous amount of money and even though developed countries are major contributors to climate change and are reluctant or slow in providing funding for developing nations to respond to the challenges posed by climate change, Guyana will have to act now.
“We have to fend for ourselves while we remain engaged with the global process. We in Guyana, we are not sitting on our hands, we have to ensure that some of our resources are utilised in this manner,” he said.

On that note, Dr. Jagdeo said the strategies outlined in the expanded Low-Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) will be put into action and the consultation, on Tuesday, is geared in this direction.
The LCDS was initially launched in 2009 with a focus on earning revenue from forest carbon and saw Guyana earning US$250M from a deal with Norway.
The updated Low Carbon Development Strategy has extended the focus to integrated water resources management and biodiversity protection. Notably, it also places attention on adaptation for the future.

BALANCED APPROACH
On that note, Dr. Jagdeo reiterated to the gathering that while developments in the oil and gas sector will move forward, Guyana will continue to bolster its environmental credentials.
This will happen through sustainability planning, he said, even as efforts continue to tackle flooding on the coastland due largely to erratic weather patterns.
In recent years, Guyana has been experiencing short burst of intense rainfall which, at times, in one day accumulates to the amounts historically experienced in one month.

This situation, Dr. Jagdeo said, puts pressure on water storage systems and the archaic Dutch drainage infrastructure on the coastland, resulting in flooding and losses to farmers and persons in residential communities.
If this problem is not managed holistically, he said the flooding and loss of livelihoods will continue.
The Hope Canal is instrumental in reducing floods in Region Four, and the government is looking to build similar systems on the coastland to reduce flooding in other areas.

Flooding will not lessen in the future, due to climate change, the Vice-President said, as he underscored the need for Guyana to put effective systems in place to deal with it and to do so urgently.

“If we do not tackle the big issues of water management, every single crop or two crops, we will lose large volumes of our produce and that has not only an impact on the economy, the overall economy of our country, but at the family level often has devastating consequences for people,” he emphasised.