Climate Resilient Water Supply
The largest part of the G-CREWS budget (~27 Mio EUR or 60% of the project’s budget) is allocated to the improvement of the water infrastructure, especially when it comes to the increase and improvement of the storage capacity.
The main actions include:
- Building several hurricane-resistant water storage tanks (each between 500-2000 m3 up to in capacity) and corresponding water supply pipelines: The water storage tanks are a means to improve water supply during plant shutdown and/or dam cleaning due to tropical storm impacts for several days. The tanks are supplying areas that were identified as most urgently needing storage upgrade. This measure is expected to support a climate-resilient supply to more than 19,000 people in the various parts of Grenada.
- Re-routing of surplus water from a major river to Les Avocats and Petite Etang treatment plants through the 7 Sister Water Transfer Project to overcome water demand-deficits in the dry season: The proposal suggests pumping water only during supply deficits, approximately 80 to 100 days annually, to bridge the gap between current dam system yield and demand, ensuring full supply even in extreme dry years. This system, powered by planned PV systems, is more cost-effective, eco-friendly, and feasible within project timelines than constructing new dams.
- Improving some of the existing dams: Retrofitting dams with innovative intake systems that allows for the extraction of water even in high siltation or blockages; installation of better sluice gates, allowing for the desilting of dams; construction of silt-traps where applicable and installation of new shut of valves.
- Building of communal rainwater harvesting systems to serve communities rather than individual households. The project is supposed to see two installation is Carriacou and one in Grenada
- Improving access to water of the health centres in case of natural disaster: by installing additional storage tanks within protective walls, some of which will utilize rainwater as their source
- Installing a supervisory control and data acquisition’ (SCADA) system that allows for remote monitoring and control of water systems thus improving functionality and efficiency.
- Developing a sustainable operation and monitoring concept for the well fields Chemin Valley and Baillies Bacolet.
Through these initiatives, the project’s objective is to increase the water availability of the nation’s portable water supply by 10%.
