Global Warming Impacts to Freshwater Resources in Caribbean SIDS

Water, by its continuous movement within the Earth and the atmosphere is the primary medium through which climate change influences this planet’s natural, physical, chemical and biological systems and processes. Global warming is affecting seasonal rainfall variabilities, precipitation rates, and resulting in uncertainties of freshwater supplies. Fresh water including both surface and ground is a finite resource and essential to sustaining human health, economic, environmental and ecosystem services (UN 2021). The Caribbean small island developing States (SIDS) are highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change due to global warming. With respect to climate change impacts to freshwater resources, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its Sixth Assessment report presented that there is a medium to high level of confidence that with increasing global warming above 1.5 °C, the Caribbean will become drier due to decreases in precipitation levels. This reduced precipitation and aridity will severely affect the safe availability and accessibility of freshwater resources (IPCC 2021).