Further efforts to deal with climate change

Georgetown, GINA, February 05, 2008.

Government’s commitment to ensuring that necessary measures are taken to help Guyana adapt and deal with the effects of climate change is heightening with the implementation of a Conservancy Adaptation Project.  
This initiative, being undertaken with support from the Global Environmental Facility through the World Bank became effective last month. It targets necessary studies, surveys and models to identify possible mechanisms to expand storage capacity of the conservancy and caters for surveys and assessments of other areas prone to flooding, including Regions 3, 4 and 5.
Under the project, certain modern technology will be used for the first time in Guyana to provide computer-generated hydrologic base-line and model that will enable engineers to better plan conservancy adaptation and drainage and irrigation works based on definitive models rather than past experience and predictions.
Minister of Agriculture Robert Persaud said the models will allow for effective water management and will provide information to ensure flood control interventions are maximally utilised.
              The designs for the civil works and technical specification for equipment to be used in the project have been completed. This is one of the many initiatives being pursued by the administration to ensure that areas affected by climate change are constantly strengthened.
Over the years, significant attention has been given to the East Demerara Water Conservancy (EDWC) to enhance its effectiveness. The purchase of equipment such as long-boom excavators and pontoons, heightening of embankment and opening-up of additional waterways are among some of the activities undertaken at the conservancy.
In addition, investments have targeted construction of an intake structure at Enmore along the conservancy and scour protection at the Kofi outlet, East Bank Demerara.
Considerations are also being given to the establishment of an additional outlet for possible discharge into the Demerara River or the Atlantic Ocean. Several proposals prepared by engineers are currently being explored. This project is estimated to cost approximately US$5M.
The EDWC was developed in 1880 to channel several water sources, for a more efficient storage and distribution system from the Lama and Maduni rivers’ catchments. Its principal users are the sugar-cane, rice and cash-crop farmers of the East Coast and East Bank Demerara and Georgetown.
It was formed between the Mahaica and Demerara rivers by damming the flow of the Lama and Maduni rivers approximately 28 and 31 miles respectively up the Mahaica River from the coast.

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