A Dutch team will begin work today to model the city’s drainage system as government implements recommendations to improve the drainage system.
“They are here for eight weeks to do the modelling and so,” Minister of Public Infrastructure David Patterson told Stabroek News recently. He said that the experts will begin work today even as he noted that government has already received the first part of the report in reducing the flood risk. “We are moving ahead with those recommendations right now,” he said.
Stabroek News reported last week that a report from a Dutch risk reduction team has said that a largely reactive approach to flood situations has worked well under the circumstances but the current flood management system is vulnerable and may collapse dramatically under extreme conditions. The report had urged a more proactive approach.
The Dutch Risk Reduction Team had visited Guyana last year at the request of government. The Ministry of Public Infrastructure had asked the team to advise on the drainage situation, both for Georgetown and the low-lying agricultural coastlands. The report was submitted in January and among other things, identified short, medium and long term measures that can be taken to better operate and manage the drainage system of Georgetown and the low-lying coastal areas.
Among other things, the report urged that government upgrade modelling capability even as it noted that the current practice of maintaining and improving the drainage system is largely projects-based. It recommended that the authorities make a long-term project plan to gradually develop the hydraulic drainage model for Georgetown. It also urged the setting up of a simple spreadsheet type of network model for the entire drainage system of Georgetown and use it to better understand the flow of water.
“Use this understanding to support project proposals (for example increasing the pumping capacity of the most northern outfall sluice along the Demerara River),” the report said. It also urged the government to start selecting two or three engineers with a passion for computers and modelling and train them on the subject of hydraulic modelling.
“A computer (hydraulic) model could be such a tool, so that project proposals can focus on those measures that have maximum contribution to the functioning of the whole drainage system. Costs for setting up and running a computer model are always significantly lower than the benefits that come with better predictions and better design of critical infrastructure. Modelling saves money and will result in considerable improvement of the current drainage,” the report said.
The team will be helping to do this.
The report had said that considering the economic situation of Guyana and the relatively mild character of the flooding events under normal conditions, it is not recommended to consider new large scale, expensive infrastructure. “Instead, it is advised to take a large number of small steps over a period of several years that will increase the knowledge and the collective ownership of the drainage infrastructure among local experts, Guyanese governments, and the people of Guyana,” the report had said.
