Excess and Lack of Water: Climate Change Issues that Call for Action

The 5th edition of the Water Dialogues was held in Madrid on October 2, featuring big names in the sector from Latin America and Spain. The event is organized annually by CAF and has become a benchmark for discussion of water policy for Ibero-American countries. This year the event discussed water and climate change resilience, with two high-level panels, one to address the issue of flooding and one on droughts.

Floods worldwide are becoming more frequent, with shorter durations but also higher intensity, and can cause unfathomable disasters, which call into question the planning and water infrastructure capacity to withstand such phenomena. Even developed countries suffer the consequences, such as those in eastern Spain weeks before the Water Dialogues, with significant damage to homes, vehicles, roads and utilities, caused by the “cold drop” phenomenon. In Latin America, floods are equally intense and destructive, with an average of 27 critical events per year, affecting also the poorest, who are the most vulnerable groups and live near river and stream banks, in unstable catchment areas or in areas with landslide risks due to water saturation of the soil.

Conversely, droughts are a less visible enemy, until it may be too late. They become apparent after an observable lack of rainfall for weeks or months, whose damage affects mostly arid and semi-arid areas, and Latin America, despite being a water-abundant region, has vast arid areas. Examples include the extensive highland areas of Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, northern Chile and Argentina, central Mexico, and areas of various Central American countries. Droughts affect both urban and rural areas, with clear documented cases over the past five years in which surface water supply systems (dams and others) were reduced to critical operation in several cities, forcing rationing of the urban water supply. Droughts have also caused significant losses in crops and livestock in the region.

How to improve forecasting, alerting, and damage containment when these phenomena occur

Precisely as part of the program of the 5th edition of the Water Dialogues, a visit was scheduled to Spain’s Automatic Hydrological Information System (SAIH), which is decentralized in most Hydrographic Confederations. The SAIH performs real-time monitoring of river flows and their level along their watercourse through the Spanish territory, and data are compared with level and volume in existing reservoirs. These logs not only allow assessment of flow rates that surpass regular levels, but also modeling and forecasting of significant floods, in order to activate the Early Warning System according to the level of risk, and thus save lives and safeguard valuable assets. Latin America and the Caribbean can aspire to modern, reliable and timely hydro-meteorological systems, with adequate quantity and quality of information. Investment in such systems is and will be much lower than the cost of repairing the damages caused by natural disasters.

Participants also visited the Spanish Military Emergency Unit (UME), formed by elite military bodies that are trained to combat fires, floods and other disasters, even those caused by human activity. The Unit has 3,400 soldiers with the capacity to react and arrive at the scene within a few hours, and who are certified as urban search and rescue teams by the United Nations and outfitted for various activities: vehicles with satellite communications, machinery and heavy equipment transport trucks, speedboats and others, including mobile pumps to remove stagnant water at waterlogged spots, which is vital to reducing flooding at critical points. This is a commendable task of the UME, which has decided to support, in times of peace, the vulnerable groups in need, and also to contribute to the preservation of public and natural assets, which are a heritage of humanity. Therefore, the UME is willing to provide support even beyond its borders, and to help control forest fires that have ravaged several countries in South America in the past months.

Forecasting, a source of reliable records and data, is an urgent task all Latin American countries should undertake. Similarly, having trained staff such as the UME is a strategy that can be replicated, ideally with the same openness and willingness to provide training to other institutions. In both tasks, CAF can support countries concerned, and thus promote the sustainable development that Latin America and the Caribbean aspire to and deserve.