Keeping low-lying Guyana's seawalls functioning is a challenge as tidal surges grow larger
GOLDEN FLEECE, Guyana (AlertNet) – Emile Wilson points to three tractors fitted with rice ploughs, parked on his homestead just off the main highway that runs through this town in eastern Guyana.
“You notice here? All here was flooded, right up to where those tractors are,” he says.
The water he is referring to is now a kilometre away, kept in check by a two-metre high sea wall that was built to protect agricultural land on the Guyana coast.
But the wall needs repairs and perhaps extra height to deal with climate change-linked increases in sea level and larger tidal surges, he says. These days, the water and his rice fields “are at the same level at times,” he says.
Guyana’s Atlantic coast stretches for about 360 kilometres (225 miles), and much of the coastal region lies below sea level, protected by a sea wall originally built by Dutch colonisers in the 19th Century. Other parts of the coastline employ a riprap - a protective layer of rocks - to break the force of the waves.
Climate change is causing sea levels to rise between two and nine millimetres per year on average, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The Guyanese government began investing intensively in sea defences in the early 1990s.
FARMLAND VULNERABLE
Despite significant improvements, officials admit that the high cost of maintenance leaves some areas vulnerable to powerful tides, which breach the wall in places or flood over the top of it. Flooding increasingly affects the economic welfare of farmers and other residents.
During unusually high tides in December 2010, part of the sea wall in the Mahaica-Berbice region, in the east of the country, gave way, leading to the intrusion of salt water. Some areas remained flooded until the wall was repaired in February 2011.
The region is one of Guyana’s most important agricultural areas. Some 70,000 acres are devoted to rice cultivation alone, about 20 percent of the total area used for rice production in the country.
Wilson, who cultivates 160 acres of rice, said that during the period of the sea wall breach, saltwater made its way inland at high tide, flooding the canals that lead to the rice fields. He considers that he got away relatively lightly.
“In our area the damage has not been so tremendous, because the water would go back out after a short period,” he said. Nevertheless, the flooding forced Wilson to delay sowing his rice crop, which means he received a lower price than normal for his late harvest.
FLOOD LOSSES
Kelvin Mingo, an elderly farmer in Eldorado village, said lack of dry ground prevented his sheep and goats from feeding properly for three months after the sea defences broke, until the breaches in the wall were finally repaired.
“Some of the pens that they were in were so flooded that we had to put them on high ground. And after the floods (the farm) became damp and the animals ended up getting foot rot,” Mingo complained.
Mingo grows vegetables such as bora beans, pumpkin and cabbages to sustain his family, and these also suffered damage from the salt water.
“I lost a lot of my crops and that is what I depend on. I lost calves, sheep and goats,” Mingo said. He estimates his losses at 800,000 Guyanese dollars (about $4,000), which represents about 40 percent of his annual income.
“With the little resources that we have we try to make better pens and so on but when the water comes on the land ... we go back to the same thing,” Mingo said.
Even farmers who did not lose produce or livestock from the flooding suffered delays in agricultural production and reduced earnings. The Ministry of Agriculture says that about 170 cash crop, rice and livestock farmers were affected by salt water intrusion from the 2010 floods.
Transport and Hydraulics minister Robeson Benn told the Natural Resources Committee of Guyana’s parliament in May 2011 that it was important to protect agricultural land on the coast because there is no comparable arable land elsewhere in the country.
“From an engineering side, living on the coast is manageable if we continue the work that we are doing in investing in sea and river defences,” Benn said. Nevertheless, the May 2010 edition of the government’s Low Carbon Development Strategy predicts that annual losses to flooding could be as high as $150 million by 2030.
The government has completed some repairs to the sea wall, but not all the farmers are reassured.
“They (the contractors) claim it has been sealed but it has not been, from what we are seeing. As soon as the high tide comes, the water is on the land again,” Wilson said.
Johann Earle is a Georgetown-based freelance writer with an interest in climate change issues.
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