GEO-6 Regional Assessment for Latin America and the Caribbean
on subsistence farming for their livelihoods live in the Dry Corridor (FAO 2015e).
The ongoing El Niño-induced drought remains a major concern for many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean due to the below-normal rainfall recorded during the previous dry and wet seasons. Drought warnings have been issued for Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Dominica, northern Guyana, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago and northern Suriname. The outlook beyond March 2016 will see a drier early part of the year in the Lesser Antilles, and this may lead to drought concerns towards the end of the Caribbean dry season. In Central America, the 2015 drought, which followed successive years of poor rainfall in some areas, has left many poor households reliant on limited labour opportunities to fulfill food needs, particularly in Dry Corridor areas. Furthermore, although aggregate coffee production in Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua continues to recover from the impact of the coffee rust outbreak since 2012, El Salvador remains heavily affected, as do many small- and medium-scale producers throughout the region (OCHA 2016).
2.2.3 State and trends Available quantities
There are three widely-used thresholds for defining levels of water stress on the basis of per person availability (Brown and Matlock 2011). Areas with average resources between 1 000 and 1 700 cubic metres per person per year are typically classed as having moderate water shortage, and if resources are below 1000 cubic metres per person per year, the region is classed as having chronic water shortage. If resources are below 500 cubic metres per person per year then the shortage is considered extreme (FAO 2012).
In Meso and South America there has been a steady decrease in water availability per person in recent decades, due mainly to the fact that the population increased from 463 to 606
54
million between 1992 and 2011 (UNECLAC 2015b). Water availability ranges from Mexico’s 3 500 cubic metres per person per year to Peru’s 55 000 cubic metres per person per year. Also, according to the Falkenmark Index (1990), countries of Meso and South America are still safely located above 1 700 cubic metres per person per year threshold for water scarcity (Campuzano et al. 2014).
In 2007, the World Bank estimated the availability of freshwater in some SIDS: Jamaica was ranked as most abundant with 3 514 cubic metres per person per year; Haiti, stressed at 1 338 cubic metres per person per year; while Bahamas’ freshwater was the scarcest at 60 cubic metres per person per year. By 2014, however, statistics show a decline: Jamaica had 3 483 cubic metres per person per year; Haiti, 1297 and the Bahamas 55 cubic metres per person per year (UNEP 2014c).
Barbados is using nearly 100 per cent of its available water resources, Saint Lucia has a water supply deficit of approximately 35 per cent, Nevis (Saint Kitts and Nevis) is at 40 per cent, Trinidad (Trinidad and Tobago) has had a deficit since 2000, Jamaica was projected to experience deficits in areas of important economic activity by 2015, Antigua and Barbuda rely on desalination to meet demands for water, and in Dominica, Grenada, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, demand can exceed supply during the dry season due to reduction in stream flows.
Groundwater
While surface water is the most common source of water in the region, groundwater use has increased in recent decades (Campuzano et al. 2014). This is partly because of the growing costs associated with surface water storage and treatment, and changes in precipitation patterns, and partly because the advantages of groundwater use are becoming more accepted (Llamas and Martinez-Santos 2005). Groundwater use is especially relevant in Argentina, where it accounts for 30 per cent of total water withdrawals. In Chile, where it is of particular importance in the mining sector, it accounts for 46 per cent. Likewise, in Costa Rica and Mexico groundwater
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