The water supply of St. Lucia is largely dependent on surface water sources. The surface water catchments of St. Lucia are relatively small and often rapidly responding catchments, due to the volcanic nature of the Island. Over the last decade an increasing population and a growing tourism sector has resulted in pressures on the water supply system increasing. Due to these pressures, water outages occur regularly (FAOAQUASTAT Saint Lucia 2015).

This case study assesses the projected impacts of climate change on river flows in the Font D’Or catchment, Saint Lucia, under two climate change scenarios. The climate change scenarios have been provided by the CARIWIG online tool and are from the ECHAM5 [Roeckner et al., 2003] and HADCM3 [Pope et al., 2000] climate models.

The hydrological modelling used to evaluate the impacts on river flows suggest that climate change could lead to a severe decrease in river flows for the Font D’Or catchment. The largest decrease is expected during the wet season, which could affect the replenishment of water storage systems. This may result in the reduced availability of water supplies. A decrease in the available surface water could have major implications for important sectors such as agriculture and tourism, which are particularly dependent on adequate water resources

Picture: Martin Eckert