Dear Editor,

While the recent spate of devastating floods has been largely blamed on poor drainage maintenance and development planning, we are failing to address the root cause of the problem, which is the lack of proper watershed management.

Indeed, a cursory glance at the lists of government departments and organizational structures shows that there is no office specifically mandated to deal with this fundamental issue. In the land of wood and water, how could we have missed the boat?

There are many reasons why watershed management should be our number one priority when it comes to environmental management. First is the fact that our watersheds provide us with the water we need for all our activities, be they industrial, commercial, domestic or institutional. After all, water is life.

A watershed is an area of ​​land that catches rain and drains or drains into a wetland, river, lake, or groundwater. From this definition, it can be argued that all of Jamaica is a watershed.

Poorly managed watersheds can lead to serious problems such as:

• loss of millions of tons of precious soil through erosion;

• destruction of critical infrastructure such as roads, bridges and buildings;

• destruction of crops;

• poor water quality due to high sediment load.

In a poorly managed watershed, these problems will be particularly pronounced during periods of heavy rainfall. In the present scenario, we experience water logging when we have too much rain and also when we have too little rain. These are clear signs that our watersheds are not being managed.

One of the main products of our catchment areas is fresh/potable water. Our National Water Authority (NWA) has responsibility for the management, protection and controlled allocation and use of Jamaica’s water resources. Our precious water resources are extracted mainly by the National Water Commission and a multitude of private interests, treated and sold to the public.

While it is clear which organizations regulate the use of water resources and provide the resources to the public, it is not clear which organization is responsible for managing and regulating the watersheds that produce this precious resource. We need to treat watershed management with the importance it deserves. We cannot continue to take watersheds for granted as the situation is only going to get worse and we can expect more water logging, more flooding and more erosion/soil loss. The impact of poor watershed management on our economy is enormous – the most recent episode estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars in infrastructure damage alone. Added to this cost are other indirect costs, including loss of life, crop damage, costs associated with dislocation, loss of production time, and the cost of supplies to abandoned areas. We are also paying a high price for damage to coastal areas that are flooded with sediment-laden water from denuded highlands.

Although we will always have natural disasters, through proactive watershed management the impact of these events can be reduced. An effective and well-coordinated watershed management program is essential for our sustainable development, especially as we face the effects of climate change.

An effective watershed management program will not only implement engineering solutions, but also consider regulating watershed activities, particularly those that influence soil erosion as well as drainage.

As a first step, we need to rank our watersheds according to the severity of critical issues such as extent of soil erosion/loss, drainage (river formation and gully control), land cover loss, deforestation. By knowing the state of our watersheds, we will be able to focus on activities that affect their sustainable use. These activities will include:

• Revegetation and reforestation;

• Engineering measures (river training, gully management, erosion control, settling ponds for soil recovery);

• Regulation of activities in watersheds (eg types of crops, construction of buildings and roads);

• Other sustainable agricultural practices (eg terracing).

While it is everyone’s duty to play a role, government must play the leading role in watershed management. The Watershed Protection Act provides the legal framework for implementing a National Watershed Management Program and promulgating the necessary regulations. The law has been revised so that it is now the prerogative of the Natural Resources Conservation Authority, but the existence of a Watershed Management Program is unclear.

At best, our current approach to watershed management can be described as ad hoc, responding to crises. We need to understand that watershed management should be our number one priority in environmental management because it affects every aspect of our lives – from mountains to coastal areas. To the extent that we have specific and visible entities that manage and extract water resources from watersheds, we must have a specific and visible entity to manage the watershed to ensure the sustainability of the resource. It is past time for the Watershed Management/Protection Organization to stand up and be recognized.

Paul Carroll

Principal Consultancy

TEM Network – Environmental Consultants

[email protected]