Greater use of water resources is urgent

– President Ali announced that plans are being explored to convert surface water and other water sources into residential water.

Water wastage is increasingly becoming a challenge and in order to ensure a safe and adequate water supply, the Government of Guyana has unveiled plans to convert its fresh surface water for residential use.
Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali said in a speech at a recent event that the move will allow Guyana to reduce water waste.
“We are also looking at how we can convert our surface water, which is abundant fresh water, and not dump it but use it for water sustainability and residential drinking purposes, etc.,” he said.
The government will review existing water infrastructure to see how best to divert water from it for residential use.

“In the Hope Canal, we are not dumping water, but we are building three other canals like the Hope Canal, and then we are also thinking about dumping fresh water in the Diamond Canal,” the head of state said.
This is part of efforts to achieve the United Nations’ sixth Sustainable Development Goal: ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all; 2.4 billion people around the world live in countries with water scarcity.
The latest data shows that by 2022, 2.2 billion people will lack safely managed drinking water and 703 million will lack basic water services. Two billion people will lack basic handwashing facilities, while 3.5 billion will lack safely managed sanitation.
It is worth noting that water shortages are becoming an environmental problem in many places, and droughts are becoming more and more common.
Globally, water scarcity and drought have become a threat to sustainable development and biodiversity.

In Guyana, the government has allocated about $26 billion to build a massive canal across the country.
The move is intended to strengthen Guyana’s drainage and irrigation capacity and address the adverse effects of climate change.
Canals similar to Hope will be built in Regions 3, 5 and 6. In Region 3, drainage and irrigation facilities are expected to cover about 28,000 acres of land, in Region 5, 214,000 acres of land, and in Region 6, 188,000 acres of land will be covered to improve water management.
The Hope Canal has the largest locks in Guyana, which will help divert excess water to the Atlantic Ocean. The large drainage and irrigation infrastructure located in Region 4 was commissioned in 2014 and has eight gates that serve as drainage locks.
At a recent press conference, Vice President Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo said the new project would be funded by the country’s sale of carbon credits to the US oil company Hess Group.

He stressed that this is in line with the country’s Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS) as 85% of the country’s carbon revenue will be used for climate adaptation projects.
In addition, Dr. Jagdeo also revealed that the government will invest $47 million to repair more than 60 sluice gates across the country. At the same time, the government is also expanding pumping stations.
“Thirty-seven water pumps will be installed at 19 pumping stations… Once the pumping stations are completed, the number of beneficiaries will exceed 140,000 people who will benefit from improved services in their communities, including domestic drainage and irrigation services as well as services in the agricultural sector,” he said.

Dr. Jagdeo said the addition of the 37 pumps to the country’s drainage and irrigation systems would enable a pumping capacity of 5,260 cubic feet per second.
“If there’s a flood, you need to get a lot of water out,” he said.
As the government also intends to purchase 40 new mobile pumps, the system’s pumping capacity will increase by 2,480 cubic feet per second.
“If you add all these investments together over five years, we will have budgeted about $155 billion to improve drainage and irrigation structures, make our economy more resilient to flooding due to climate change, and improve our ability to address water resource management,” Dr Jagdeo said.