conference magazine - Caribbean Environmental Health Institute

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“horizontal” (inter-sectorial) and “vertical” (national-community governance)
interactions and networking between stakeholders. It is
envisaged that a National Apex Water Body will be established to
carry out necessary institutional reforms and to reconcile both sectoral
and national interests and priorities for water.
These broader policy reforms are being complemented by a national
IWRM demonstration project which focuses on sustainable water
management using “ridge to reef” principles. This Global Environment
Facility (GEF) funded initiative is aimed at restoring the
Ngerikiil watershed to improve surface water quality. This demonstration
project is designed to act as a catalyst for replication and
scaling-up approaches to improve water resource management and
to inform broader policy and legal reforms in Palau.
National Water Information Systems: a Tool to Support Integrated
Water Resources Management in the Caribbean by
Trevor Thompson, Marie-Claire St-Jacques, Adrian Trotman, Andreas
Haiduk, Catherine Senecal and Chandra A. Madramootoo
National Water Information Systems (NWIS) are powerful tools to
contribute to the strengthening of Integrated Water Resources Management
(IWRM) in the Caribbean and to address the problems of
compartmentalized data, lack of central storage, and limited access
to data for decision-making in water management. This paper reviews
the development process of the NWIS in two Caribbean countries,
Jamaica and Grenada, outlines their main outcomes to date
along with the challenges encountered and lessons learnt, and provides
an overview of their potential for the wider Caribbean region.
NWIS serve as the official repository for hydrologic, climate, land,
watershed, infrastructure and water-related data. They are extremely
powerful quantitative and qualitative tools which allow not
only the archiving of data, but also display information in a very
comprehensive and visual manner to give a snapshot of the water
resources at any time and geographical scale. The Grenada NWIS
has significantly expanded on the capabilities of the earlier Jamaican
version through (i) the introduction of a user-friendly system
administration interface that readily facilitates the inclusion of new
parameters into the database and (ii) links to Google Earth imagery.
Since their implementation, the systems have brought together data
previously scattered across different agencies, providing timely information
to decision-makers and planners freely and remotely
through internet access. On a regional scale, the Grenada NWIS
offers a starting point for the modernization and standardization of
data management led by the Caribbean Institute for Meteorology
and Hydrology (CIMH).
Parallel Session 4 - Caribbean Sustainable
Performance Contracting for Energy Services in the Caribbean
Hotel Industry by Bill Meade
Despite high energy costs and associated utility bills, Caribbean
hotels have not invested in energy efficiency beyond low-cost, rapid
payback period options. As new technologies become available,
and governments are introducing policies to reduce their dependence
on imported oil and greenhouse gas emissions, the Caribbean
hotel industry is taking a harder look at investments in energy efficiency
and renewable energy.
At the same time, Caribbean hoteliers are facing financial challenges
due to the soft leisure travel market. While investments in
energy efficiency and renewable energy can yield attractive returns,
there is skepticism of the advertised performance (e.g., energy
savings) of new, imported technologies. Hoteliers are unlikely to
pursue high capital cost and long payback period (greater than 2
years) investments.
Companies offering energy-efficiency related and other valueadded
services under some form of performance contracting
(ESCOs) offer Caribbean hoteliers an option for capitalizing on
energy improvements (savings). The ESCO arranges the financing,
and guarantees a level of performance, overcoming two major
hurdles. This paper will review the opportunities and challenges
facing ESCOs operating in the Caribbean hotel market. It will present
the results of a ESCO industry survey conducted under the
Caribbean Hotel Energy Efficiency Action (CHENACT) Program.
Hydropower development in the Caribbean - Lessons learned
from projects in St. Vincent and Dominica by Sven Homscheid
In 2009 and early 2010 CREDP studied three hydropower projects
in St. Vincent (two rehabilitations of existing plants and one new
development) and one hydropower project in Dominica (new development
at an existing pipeline). For all three projects feasibility
studies including environmental and social impact assessments
were carried out. The paper describes the approach taken towards
the development, the projects, challenges encountered, lessons
learned and technical details of the projects. The logical sequence
of steps of the project development are described, including related
studies that were needed beforehand or simultaneous to the feasibility
studies. The outcomes of the feasibility studies are presented
and discussed, and the suggested approach for further implementation
is outlined. In the case of the three hydropower projects in St.
Vincent, the electricity utility is the developer while in the case of
the project in Dominica the water utility is the developer. The different
project evaluation criteria resulting from the different nature of
investors are described. All projects are intended to be implemented
and the different tendering approaches are discussed.
Project financing was identified as the major barrier and solutions
are offered in this paper to overcome this problem. The issue of
preparing investment opportunities in the hydropower sector in
Caribbean territories and the role of governments and other players
will also be addressed.
Appropriate Technologies and Systems in Response to Climate
Change Small Scale Wind and Photovoltaics Feasibility
by Anthony Chen and Anthony Hill
Alternative sources of non-hydrocarbon energy were first given
serious consideration during the fuel crisis of the late 70’s. However
support for research in this area declined as soon as the cost
of oil declined in the 80’s. Renewed interest in alternative sources
has been sparked by the fuel crisis of 2008 and sustained by the
FIFTH BIENNIAL CARIBBEAN ENVIRONMENTAL FORUM AND EXHIBITION