Dominica hosted the 4th Technical Meeting of the Caribbean Hydrological Cycle Observing System (Carib-Hycos) on Tuesday.
Carib-Hycos is essentially a regional observation system of water resources. This observation system monitors the quality and quantity of the region’s water, taking into account the pollution risk to the Caribbean Sea.
Several Caribbean countries were represented at this meeting including Dominica which has benefited from seventy-five thousand EC dollars of river monitoring equipment and data management software. It will be used to determine the effects of climate change on our water resources.
This equipment is currently being installed in various locations around the island and the findings will be shared with the ten other participating countries. These countries span from Cuba to Trinidad.
Carib-Hycos aims to strengthen international cooperation and promote free exchange of hydrological data.
The Coordinator of Carib-Hycos, Hydrologist Jean Pierre Bricquet stated, “When a country’s water resources are properly managed, the country can effectively deal with droughts and floods.”
Bricquet noted that the next step is to establish a database software which most countries lack.
“This specific software is necessary to sort the large amount of information derived from the observation system. It is also able to send and receive data from other countries.”
Junior Mathurin, Field Officer at the Water Resource Management Agency in St. Lucia said that his country has profited significantly from Carib-Hycos.
“The project came at a very opportune time for St Lucia. In 2010 there were a number of communities that experienced flooding as a result of Hurricane Thomas. With the Carib Hycos project coming on board, it made life a lot easier for us in that we could better monitor our water levels in the rivers and even in the flood plain areas. We have a telemetric system where we can go online and view the rain fall and the water levels within the river, so you would know on hand exactly is taking place in the upper watershed of the area.”
Mathurin further explained how Carib-Hycos can prove useful to Dominica.
Layou is prone to flash floods in Dominica. Having one of these stations at the end or top parts of Layou, transmitting information to people at Dowasco, you could easily evacuate people in the lower parts of Layou. It’s a very useful project.
The Caribbean hydrological cycle observing system will assist authorities with monitoring potentially hazardous water trends. Authorities can then take adequate precautions to protect life and property.