Looking up at the sky
A poor year in precipitations confirms that drought in Cuba is one of the most fearful consequences of climate change.

The year began with very low levels of precipitations in Cuba, according to a report of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources.
A first quarter dryer than usual is worrying Cuban farmers and a shadow is hovering over a strategic objective of the country: to increase food production. In the face of a threat that is not new, the authorities are promoting alternatives to build a system of sustainable agriculture.
With an average of 90.7 millimetres from January to March, the precipitations were barely at 61 percent of the historic mean for that period, according to a report by the National Hydrological Service of the Department of Hydrographic Basins of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources (INRH), published by the daily Granma.
The greatest deficit of rains was registered in the central region of Cuba, with an accumulated 69.3 millimetres, equivalent to 54 percent of the historic mean. It is followed by the western region with 58 percent (89.4 millimetres) and the eastern with 69 percent (116.3 millimetres).
Farmers are not surprised by the shortage of rain because that quarter is part of the driest period in Cuba – approximately from Nov. to Abr. -, though they are still worried about the start of the year with a harsher drought than usual. Moreover, the rains have been especially fleeting in the regions where the provinces with the greatest weight in the agricultural economy are located: Artemisa, Mayabeque and Matanzas, in the west, and Ciego de Avila in the centre.
The alarm has also been set off in the country’s reservoirs, though the situation is less tense. At the close of the first quarter, the dams were storing 5.755 billion cubic metres of water, 62.7 percent of their total filling capacity, which is more than nine billion cubic metres.
The need for resorting to those reserves to compensate for the shortage of precipitations led to a reduction of some 600 million cubic metres in impounded water, but according to the INRH report the existing total still exceeded by more than 858 million the amount retained in the same period of 2012 and by around 514 million for the historic mean for March.
With the new century, drought gains increasingly more importance among the weather phenomena that call attention in Cuba. The millions of dollars’ worth of damages caused in the 2003-2004 period by the low precipitations compete with those of some hurricanes.
Another drought period began in Nov. 2008. The year 2009 classified as the fourth with the less rains in 109 years.
In the face of a threat considered by experts as a regional manifestation of climate change on the planet, the Cuban government has made millions of dollars’ worth of investments to build a kilometres-long canal or downloading networks, improving reservoirs and renovating aqueducts.
It is seeking to make better use of water availability between the island’s central and eastern regions, traditionally registering the lowest water levels.
At the same time the authorities are promoting a greater prominence or initiative on a local level, a line in which a project known by its initials, BASAL (Environmental Bases for Local Food Sustainability), is inserted. Led by the Science, Technology and Environment Ministry, the project aims to reduce the vulnerabilities derived from climate change, among which drought is one of the most feared.
BASAL, in which the Agriculture Ministry and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) also participate, with financing from the European Union and the Swizz Agency for Development and Cooperation, received new support and a boost at a national workshop held in Havana in early April.
The UNDP representative in Cuba and resident coordinator of the United Nations, Bárbara Pesce-Monteiro, praised on that occasion the scientific rigor and the multidisciplinary character of these programmes thought out for the agricultural sector. She even said they can be applied successfully in other nations of the world.
Pesce-Monteiro recognised that the Cuban environment authorities are seeking a sustainable development model that integrates human beings and their need for a dignified and healthy standard of living within their environment.
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