Water scarcity hounds people living on small islands. But creative solutions to water scarcity arises because of the necessity to address this basic need to maintain life. This article describes how an enterprising person in Colawit Island helped fellow community members overcome the perennial lack of water in their community, particularly during the dry months.
Water scarcity in the small islands is a paramount problem that recurs yearly. Climate change appears to make this worse because rains no longer provide enough to replenish groundwater sources. The community of fishers who prefer to live in the small islands suffers.
Is there a technological solution to this problem? This article explores the issue, along with an unconventional solution to address water scarcity in small islands.
Water Scarcity in the Small Islands
One of the pressing issues in today’s modern world is the depletion of natural freshwater sources. This problem is especially true in small islands where people settled and gradually depleted the water reserves as the island’s population increases because of both in-migration and natural reproduction.
Water scarcity occurs when the carrying capacity, that is when water consumption exceeds the island’s capacity to replenish its store of water. Unless people living on the islands are well aware of this possibility, exceeding the island’s capacity to regenerate its freshwater sources is the imminent outcome — expected result of too many people living on the island.
This issue has come into play, as I was one of those requested by a local government institution tasked with ensuring sustainable development in the province. Together with stakeholders from island municipalities, we discussed the environmental concerns of people living on the islands. I was part of the sociocultural sector group that deliberated threats to resource sustainability on the islands.
One of the major concerns of the island communities is the lack of water on those days when rains that replenish the groundwater sources are not available. Some people have adapted to this condition by designing structures to catch rainwater and store these for use during the dry months.
This approach seems to go well, but people complaining about water scarcity means that the issue still bogs them. For those who cannot afford to build large structures to keep them sufficiently supplied with freshwater, this is a real problem; except in those cases where an enterprising member of the population undertakes an unconventional solution that trickles down to the public’s benefit.
I describe this simple but working solution in the next section.
Solution to Water Scarcity: Piped Fresh Water from Abundant Water Sources
Several months back, while searching for a place where our research team can take a bath in Bulawit, one of several islands in northern Palawan, I met an ice-manufacturing business owner. He has a considerable stock of freshwater in large tanks in his house despite the difficulty that other community members in the other islands experience.
We inquired a little about this maverick amid freshwater scarcity, and we discovered he figured out a simple solution to the perennial freshwater problem many people in the community encountered.
With an air of confidence, he explained to us that a few years back; he looked for a good source of freshwater in the adjoining islands and laid down polyvinyl chloride or PVC pipes underwater from that distant place to his house, funding everything by himself!
He made a good business out of it. He supplied the freshwater needs of other people in the community for a small fee.
He converted a problem into an opportunity. No wonder he’s the richest man in the island.
Is the business owner’s solution a sustainable one?
If the entrepreneur continues to run his water business for a long time, chances are, the source of freshwater will get depleted as more people avail of piped water he draws out from the other island assuming a natural increase in island population through time. However, if better technology becomes available before exceeding the source island’s water carrying capacity—such as the discovery of a low-cost desalination system or efficient water recycling system—freshwater availability should not be a problem.
Alternatively, natural, long-term remedies such as reforestation or watershed enhancement will help slow down water runoff and help increase the groundwater storage. Without these measures in place, situations such as that on Nangalao Island, will persist.
If all else fails, the only long-term solution is for the people to leave the small islands and live in large islands or continents where freshwater abound.
[cite]
