Unpredictable weather events are reshaping the future of small states and island nations. Barbados’ technology-focused, data-driven response to climate change can help strengthen its resilience—and can be adapted for wider use, writes ALISON BUCKHOLTZ.
With a palm-sized notebook in one hand and a pencil in the other, Katrina Chapman surveys a stretch of beach near Bridgetown, Barbados and looks out to the calm, turquoise waters of Pile Bay. But she’s not just admiring the view.
Chapman, the manager of the Pile Bay Fish Landing facility, is tracking the influx of sargassum—ropy, brown seaweed that’s smothering coral reefs, snarling the nets of fisherfolk whose income depends on their daily catch, and negatively impacting the landings of flying fish, Barbados’ national dish. Warming waters and other factors are speeding sargassum’s growth throughout the Caribbean, and Chapman, a third-generation Barbadian fisherwoman, has never seen anything like the influx now rotting on beaches. She’s worried, she admits.
As a small wooden fishing boat returns to shore, she writes down the fishermen’s observations about the sargassum’s spread and direction. Then, back at Pile Bay’s small processing facility, she turns to the fish, documenting in her notebook the species, weight, and size of each boat’s haul, along with where and how the fish were caught.
Chapman documents every catch that comes in, as she does here with spear fisherman Andre Ferguson. Information from fisherfolks’ yields, especially data about temperature and grades, may allow the fish to be labeled sustainable—a certification that helps Barbados’ fishing industry access key export markets.
This will be one of the final weeks Chapman uses paper and pencil to document Pile Bay’s busy days, because digital tablets are en route to the facility. The tablets are tools to support the new DigiFish initiative, a collaborative program between government, civil society, and the private sector to capture and digitize data. The data collection project aims to improve efficiency, facilitate entry into new markets, integrate generational knowledge, and navigate the consequences of global warming.
But in Barbados, global warming is not just a problem for the fishing industry. The country’s geographical location leaves it and its people vulnerable to the varied consequences of the climate crisis. Unpredictable weather events, coastal erosion, soil depletion, and groundwater instability all add up to what Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley calls an existential threat.
For Barbados and other coastal nations and cities, “Our very survival is at stake,” says Mottley. “This is why we must act decisively and act now. The challenges we face are daunting, so we are meeting them head-on, pairing bold policies with practical, community-based measures that are already helping us move toward our climate targets. The time is now to do even more.”
Resilience in action: Climate activists and government ministers describe how it feels to live under threat of extreme weather events, and how they are creating a resilient future.
To confront this challenge, the government of Barbados launched Roofs to Reefs, a national strategy to build resilience to climate change and unpredictable weather-related events. Digitization, and the use of data to identify hazards and set targets, is a key element of that response. The delivery of tablets on its way to Katrina Chapman is part of technology-focused, data-driven approach to fortifying infrastructure, promoting renewable energy, and cultivating green jobs.
“Without technology and data that allow us to set climate resilience targets, we don’t have a chance at sustainability,” says Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister with Responsibility for Climate Resilience Shantal Munro-Knight. “When we can deploy resources that match the data we have about vulnerability, we can be systematic rather than scattershot…and protect our environment as well as the communities that need [help] most.”
“The scope and impact of the climate challenge demands leadership,” says IFC Managing Director Makhtar Diop. “Barbados’ Roofs to Reefs program is innovative and practical, and has the potential to be adapted across the Caribbean and other vulnerable island nations.”
Fisherfolk can voluntarily place GPS trackers in their boats as part of the DigiFish initiative to study and improve sustainable fishing practices.
A record-breaking number of lightning strikes during Hurricane Elsa in 2021 resulted in a five-day power outage across Barbados and the destruction of thousands of homes, including the one pictured here. The Category 1 storm was the first hurricane to hit Barbados in more than 60 years.
How data informs development
Officials like Munro-Knight are well-versed in the consequences of climate change in Barbados. In 2021, Hurricane Elsa’s record-breaking number of lightning strikes resulted in a five-day power outage across the island. The first hurricane to hit Barbados in 65 years, Elsa came on the heels of the catastrophic eruption of the La Soufrière volcano in nearby St. Vincent, which blanketed Barbados in ash, killed scores of food crops, shuttered the island’s only airport, and caused respiratory distress for many people. Critical infrastructure is also at risk because salt water is seeping into the water supply—the result of rising levels of sea water.
But knowing what’s ahead, Munro-Knight says, isn’t the same as preparing. To better plan for Barbados’ future, IFC worked closely with the government to develop a digital climate risk identification and resilience planning tool that identifies hazards, offers options to potentially mitigate impacts, and allows users to prioritize investment imperatives based on national resilience targets.
The tool, known as the hypervisor, aggregates data from a range of sources, including national government agencies and global databases. The resulting three-dimensional visualization includes the country’s topography, built environment, and key assets—existing and planned—overlaid with climatic and other environmental hazards. Users can zoom in on any point to view locations’ susceptibility to weather events, such as potential droughts or storm surge, along with areas vulnerable to coastal erosion, inland flooding and seismic risk.
“Even though there’s plenty of institutional and community knowledge, with people who can tell you things like, ‘There’s always a landslide on this hill when a tropical storm hits,’ that information can’t be used for government planning purposes unless it’s codified,” says Pepukaye Bardouille, who, as an IFC Senior Operations Officer, conceived and oversaw the tool’s development in Barbados as part of a Global Platform for Resilient Infrastructure Investment Identification in Small Islands and Small States. (Bardouille is now Special Advisor on Climate Resilience, Prime Minister’s Office and Director, Bridgetown Initiative.
This data is critical because it informs policy, planning, and investment needs for future development as well as where grants or grant and concessional financing are required, Munro-Knight points out. She has championed the data resilience tool, emphasizing its role in strengthening infrastructure that impacts people’s lives. The hypervisor shows, for example, that the main hospital in Barbados, Queen Elizabeth Hospital, was built on a flood plain, leaving it vulnerable if a major storm hits the island.
Queen Elizabeth Hospital, is Barbados’ primary acute care medical facility. It was built on a flood plain, leaving Barbados’ health care system and country-wide patient care vulnerable if a major storm hits the island.
“When we have this kind of information, we can mitigate the effects of a potential disaster and start considering the resources that need to go into building a future hospital,” she says. This could include laying new roads and water pipes, setting up distributed power generation systems, and building nearby neighborhoods and schools—long-term plans that require cooperation among many government agencies as well as the private sector.
The hypervisor was designed to show where private sector development opportunities exist, Bardouille says. “The real value is in aligning with government on where they need more or less of something in order to achieve resilience targets, whether it’s agriculture, tourism, wind-based power capacity, a new transformer, or a desalination plant—and signaling to the private sector where they can come in to support government’s development plans.”
Because the hypervisor is a live tool, it can be updated as new data on risks becomes available and new infrastructure projects are planned, approved, or completed—helping government, development partners, the private sector, and citizens track progress.
This is consistent with the goals of the International Monetary Fund’s new $189 million Resilience and Sustainability Fund for Barbados, which calls for the mainstreaming of climate change in the national budget.
Confronting water scarcity
Technology and data modeling also have the potential to strengthen individual sectors, such as the water sector, according to Karl Payne, a lecturer and the water resources management program coordinator at the Center for Research Management and Environmental Studies at the University of West Indies, Cave Hill campus.
Barbados, like half of the Caribbean islands considered water-scarce, is confronting the seepage of seawater into its aquifers, as well as rainfall that might drop by as much as 40 percent by the end of the century, UN research shows.
New solutions such as artificial intelligence (AI) applications for climate resilience are especially promising in Barbados, Payne says, noting the “democratization of AI tools” such as open-source cloud computing and machine learning. Data can train AI models to place wells in location that will minimize salt water intrusion, for example, or propose scenarios for re-use that will bolster food security and prevent a food crisis. Models can also predict how water levels will change in response to rainfall and pumping regimes, directing the water authority on how much to conserve. Other data, such as information from drones, can help inform optimal roof designs for harvesting rainwater.
Water sector lead at the Green Climate Fund, Amgad Elmahdi also thinks that the use of new technology can unlock solutions for Barbados and other countries that face long-term water security challenges. “Many water authorities, confronting climate change, aging assets, growing populations, expenditure constraints, changing customer expectations, and growing sustainability, environmental, and governance expectations…[can] leverage the rapid advancement in digital technology and use data-driven modeling and decision-making,” he says. He cites the use of drones in creating high-precision flood hazard models to help predict and identify people at risk.
Barbados is on the right path, Payne believes. “There are some things the government is already doing right, like the use of solar energy to power water tanks,” he says. “As we start applying more scientific and technological approaches to our water resource issues, I’m optimistic that we will make progress in other areas as well.”
On the southern coast of the island of Barbados, the Richard Haynes Boardwalk shows wear from almost constant pounding.
What is threatening Barbados’ water supply?
Drastically decreasing groundwater levels, paired with rising sea levels, is causing sea water to seep into fresh water aquifers in water-scarce Barbados. The elevating salt concentrations threaten public health and food security because 95 per cent of Barbados’ potable water comes from aquifers.
“Barbados’ Roofs to Reefs programme is innovative and practical, and has the potential to be adapted across the Caribbean and other vulnerable island nations,” stated IFC Managing Director, Makhtar Diop.
Technology powers the shift to renewables
The solar photovoltaic (PV) panels that stripe the island hint at a third “R” in the government’s “Roofs to Reefs” climate resilience strategy: renewables. The government has pledged to transition to a 100 per cent renewable-based power generation, and reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 70 per cent, by 2030.
“Energy security is part of our development trajectory, and renewable energy specifically is critical to our future,” says Barbados’ Minister of Energy and Business Development Lisa Cummins. “We don’t have all the answers, but we are learning from other countries what works, and sharing our knowledge with small islands and developing states that face similar hazards.”
As in many other tropical islands, the sun is plentiful in Barbados, and solar technology is already widely accepted. Locally-produced residential solar water heaters have been on the market since 1974 and are ubiquitous across the country, perched next to small, traditional chattel houses as well as more modern homes. PV panels that generate electricity are also widespread, dotting roofs, bus canopies, and neighborhood grocery kiosks.
In 2016, Barbados Light and Power Corporation (BLPC), the privately-owned national electricity utility, commissioned a 10MW PV farm, to which 20MWh of battery storage was added in 2018. It generates sufficient power for 7,700 households. It also helps Barbados create the circular economy envisioned in the Roofs to Reefs programme—because a population of 500 Black Belly sheep graze between the solar panels, munching on 42 acres of grass and other vegetation, while enjoying the shade provided by the panels.
Locally-produced residential solar water heaters began appearing on rooftops in Barbados about 50 years ago.
The idea of a mixed-use renewable energy facility is appealing on an island because space is a valuable resource, according to Aidan Rogers, Strategic Advisor for the eastern Caribbean at Hydrogène de France (HDF Energy). HDF and French fuels distributor Rubis SCA, supported by IFC and IDB Invest, are developing Renewstable Barbados, the Caribbean’s largest hydrogen project. This 50 MW solar generation facility with green hydrogen and lithium-ion battery storage will provide electricity to Barbados’ grid, demonstrating the potential for storage of electricity.
These Black Belly sheep, part of a herd of 500 that graze in the solar field owned by Barbados Light and Power, contribute to the island’s circular economy.
Soaring demand for solar energy
Mainstream acceptance of renewable technology is important for several reasons. In addition to the negative environmental impact of fossil fuels, Barbados’ heavy dependence on imported fuels exposes the country to international price fluctuations, impacting the competitiveness of productive sectors, says the World Bank. It’s also a tremendous burden on household budgets. Barbadians’ energy costs are among the highest in the world, and residential electricity consumption has been steadily increasing.
To encourage the installation of solar PV, no licenses are required for residential systems up to 10kw, and net metering has been instituted to allow homeowners to sell surplus electricity that they generate back to the utility.
Among residents and businesses, “the appetite for solar has already exceeded our expectations,” Cummins says. “When people saw that there was a real possibility to control their electricity costs by putting panels on their roof, demand soared. There’s been a real lifestyle shift, and it’s propelling the market forward….people see what their role in the [energy] transition needs to be.”
The private sector also has a critical role to play at “many different levels,” Cummins says. “We want to be able to pair local private sector participation with international corporate finance, networks, and resources, including and specifically technology. We want our private sector partners to work very closely with us to be able to facilitate Barbados’ energy transition.”
For Executive Director at Williams Industries, David Staples installing renewable energy capacity is one of the most promising areas for private sector investment.
“We look to see where we can step in and make a difference…to help build or rebuild the infrastructure,” he says. Staples estimates that Williams Caribbean Capital, part of Williams Industries, has created US$60 to US$80 million worth of new investment in Barbados’ green sector, including its projects in solar PV, water infrastructure, and waste recycling.
A crew from Williams Industries lays the cables that will connect solar panels on a hardware store roof.
Schools of fish gather near sunken ships placed intentionally to create a snorkeling destination for tourists at Carlisle Bay. Tourism remains an important contributor to Barbados’s economy.
An inclusive definition of resilience
Each of those new private sector partnerships creates green jobs for people in Barbados, where tourism has long been the biggest source of employment. The World Travel and Tourism Council estimates the total contribution of tourism to be around 31 per cent of the country’s GDP, supporting 33 per cent of jobs. Those figures don’t include people who work in the informal sector, which is significant.
This reflects the heavy dependence on tourism throughout the Eastern Caribbean, where it is the main driver of the economy, according to the World Bank.
As in other Caribbean nations, COVID-19 devastated Barbados’ tourism-dependent economy, making it clearer than ever that the country needed to diversify its economy. That’s where green jobs come in, Staples says. “Whether it’s installing low-flow toilets, working to minimize waste, or doing data modeling, the definition of a green job is evolving, and green jobs will continue to grow as sustainability becomes a focal point in Barbados.”
The World Bank’s recent US$100 million financial support for sustainable development in Barbados will be used to help create jobs in the blue and green economies, Prime Minister Mottley said at the time of the announcement. The blue economy includes fisheries, tourism, and shipping, as well as emerging sectors such as mariculture, renewable energy, and biotechnology.
At Pile Bay Fish Landing, where data collectors carrying digital tablets will soon greet fisherfolk returning from a morning at sea, Katrina Chapman welcomes the support for the next phase of the fishing industry. She remembers how much her grandmother’s life improved when the first landing facility was built: her grandmother could sell her catch there rather than walk door to door, peddling individual fish she carried on a tray on her head.
“If there’s more attention paid to the people who do the fishing, and they can bring more money in and support their families, it’s a good thing,” Chapman says.
This focus on the quality of life for individuals and communities throughout Barbados is essential to the idea of resilience, according to Munro-Knight, the Minister with Responsibility for Climate Resilience.
“Climate resilience isn’t just about infrastructure,” she says. “When we’re talking about housing, or water, or a physical development plan, we’re also talking about people and poverty and the social sector. All of those parts make up sustainability. [Resilience] is about being able to encourage and support people at the community household level, to make sure that we build things that are going to help protect their resources and things that they value.”
- Buckholtz is Senior Writer/Editor at the World Bank Group.
