Back to Belize

Belize never fails to excite me. My first visit to the country at this time of year and what is different is the amount of water around. You notice it landing at Belize City Airport and then as you drive out, in virtually any direction, from the City. Low-lying, seasonal swamplands all around.

The weather was very pleasant, not too hot with the occasional rain shower to take the edge off the heat should it start to build up. In fact a couple of mornings we had early morning mist over Belmopan. On one occasion on our trip down south that mist caressing the trees in the ealry morning sunlight, refracting the rays made a most beautiful sight to see. Marred only by the sight of convoys of lorries tanking south with their loads of crude oil for export.

Leonard and I are just back from 5 days in Belize, basing ourselves in Belmopan. The purpose of our visit was to make arrangements for the Field Trip in semester II and it is somewhat of a departure from what we have normally done. First, we have started much earlier with the planning and secondly instead of doing the arrangements remotely we have gone to Belize to start the process in conjunction with the Climate Change Centre. We hope the outcome will be a much better experience for the students, and for ourselves as well.

One evening we travelled down to Belize City for the night. We were invited to be diner guests of the Climate Change Centre which was hosting the outgoing Secretary-General of CARICOM. Whilst normally lobster as a dish is owrth waiting for I did think think that the hotel pushed their luck. The service was not up to scratch by any means and I can only hope that this was reflected in the final account! The journey back was a breeze - I cannot remember a thing about it as it was so late that I slept all the way back - like the rest of the passengers. Our driver, the V. Rev. Moody was as usual on top of the situation.

And finally I made close friends with some of the local wildlife, though it managed to keep it presence quiet until I was in the shower with it - see the short video.

Belize Photo Album

Attached is a link to the photo album for the recent field trip to Belize.  I've also tried to locate each of the photo locations with Google maps.

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Belize Field Trip Photo Album

Here's a selection of photgraphs taken during the Belize Field Trip March 2010. The cations are self explanatory.

More thoughts on Bowen & Bowen visit

Excellent tour as usual, Mr. Lanza was once again an informative and entertaining guide.  The tour of the laboratories, the water treatment and the wastewater facilities, with the explanations that are an integral part of the tour give one of the most informative insights into these aspects of water management.  What is for me particularly interesting is that this is undertaken by a commercial undertaking and we are told the reasons why it is so important for their business.  I think that we come away with a much better understanding than from other facilities.  The fact that Mr. Lanza has years of experience of working in the industry as well as his previous background with the water authority means that he is able to bring all that background and put it at our disposal.

Among the aspects that we did not cover were the potential impact that climate change might have on the undertaking – it would have been instructive to have heard what Mr. Lanza had to say.  The other aspect, of a more technical nature would have been to consider the efficiency of water use within the two production facilities and how you would go about doing a water audit in order to determine this and then compare this against a benchmark set of figures.  This would also then feed into how you would go about estimating the water demand and consumption of the facilities for given levels of production.

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A misty Challilo Dam in Cayo District of Belize, looking down at the dam wall and power house from the approach road.

From Miami

Challilo Dam

Two main things struck me this year as being different about this day’s visit.  Firstly, the areas of pine forest that had previously been affected by pine bark beetle were showing a lot more ground cover than previously and the vegetation cover in general was much more prolific.  Secondly, the water level in the dam was the lowest that we have seen it, no surprise here really given what we have been told of the rainy season so far.

This year we got to go inside the dam itself and walk a little way along the gallery.  It’s much bigger than the other dam galleries I’ve been though.  There is some instrumentation to measure seepage through the dam.  An interesting snippet that I didn’t know previously was that the dam construction technique used was roller compaction of the concrete.

During the discussion with Mr Reynolds the Chief Engineer the matter of water quality came up. There were a couple of points that I noted.  First he said that one of the reasons for the high level of sediment that they had on one occasion was that during a period of high inflow the water was ‘short cutting’ across a bend in the river and as a result it picked up a lot more sediments as well as other woody & vegetation debris.  As this was carried in on colder water it was near the bottom of the impoundment and when released through the dam valves it carried the sediment with it.  Dam impoundments will of course change the water quality of the water stored from that of the natural flow which under certain conditions impact the downstream ecology as much as the alteration in flow regimes.

Belmopan

Spent quite a bit of time going through the assignments, after we had reached the Climate Change Centre’s offices.  There were some clarifications that needed to be made to them.  For example, the results of the fieldwork at Monkey River need to be shared among all the groups so that all can write them up and have a good overview of what was done.  So the information needs to be shared.  Also there was no fieldwork as such on the Macal River at the dams so you cannot include what’s not done.  And the Assignment 3 should be about 2000 words.

Whilst at the Center we met with the Deputy Director of Petroleum and Mining and had a very interesting conversation about sand and gravel abstraction in Belize.  He has offered to get to us information on previous sand and gravel abstractions from the Bladen and Swasey Rivers.  Much of the abstraction in the upper part of the Swasey is done for the Ministry of Works and that therefore there is somewhat less control over what is taken out.  It would appear from what he was saying that under his leadership the abstraction regime has tightened up considerably, even though they have a small number of people.  They rely on ‘whistle blowing’ as well as unscheduled inspections three times a year.  He also said that he would like to collaborate on future field trips in a similar way to what the Hydrology section does at present.

I am somewhat concerned over the deterioration of the water quality samples, we will have to get them to the Laboratory in the morning.  Even then I am not sure if we will get any reliable results.  This is an aspect we are going to have to look at in the future as we really must get them tested as soon as possible.  I read that the University of Belize was (in 2007) setting up a water quality laboratory – we should look into that and see if there is some way in which we could share resources.

Blue Creek Mennonite Community

Aquifers and their water quality, water quality of surface water, water issues within communities and if there is any competition between users in the area.  It was mentioned that there were transboundary problems in the upper part of the watershed.  Flooding was mentioned as a problem and that the farmers were developing tir own dams to capture run-off which was partly in response to changes in the legislation governing water allocation.  The remark was made that the legislation changes would only affect domestic water – to be checked.

Checks including impact on water quality, on the first use of pesticides is done through the Pesticides Control Board.  Other than that there is n control of water quantity or quality.  The Mennonites said that they reuse a lot of the water that they take out of the Rio Bravo, it is stored in the drainage channels.  Salinity levels are vey high.

We were told about a ‘cooperative’ community that does rain-fed rice growing in the upland areas above Blue Creek, these we found including the mill where they bring the grain.

Travelling down to Hill Bank we noticed just before the entrance a centre point irrigation system and it later transpired that the land development was being undertaken by the Mennonite community.  One of the reasons we were later told for the buying up of the land by Programme for Belize was to prevent land conversion by the Mennonites to agriculture.  They were growing beans and sorghum in the area.

Hill Bank and Programme for Belize Forestry Protected Area.

Not that much of interest in what we did here to water resources.  The possibilities are to look at surrounding land use practices and their impact on water resources – development pressures, land conversions especially the difference between that undertaken by Mennonite communities and Metitzo communities in the Orange Walk District.  It might also be interesting to think about what impact land conversion to agriculture is having on the recharge and run-off to creeks in the area.  In theory if there has been substantial conversion then there should be impacts but quite what they might be would have to be determined.

Some basic subsurface geology and hydrogeology mapping would be required.

The change over to the pine forest areas is quite abrupt.  What was also surprising was the dampness of the soil underneath the floor litter even though it had been quite some time since there had been rain.

Bowen & Bowen Brewery

Excellent tour as usual,  Mr Lorensa was once again an informative and entertaining guide.  More to follow.

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Mollejon Dam

Fantastic setting amind the mountains but the fact that there was so little water flowing down the river sort of surprised me though perhaps it should not have.  I say this because it is evident looking at the main river that we came along by the road up to San Ignacio (especially where we crossed the river) that flows are low.  Now this is perhaps due to this being the drier season or it could be due to alterations to the flows.  The matter of whether or not to develop hydropower in relatively pristine environments brings into sharp focus the challenges facing developing countries.  How much do you sacrifice of the environment in order to improve social conditions (and if indeed it does improve social conditions?).  Hydropower in Belize has with the building of the Challilo Dam been the subject of much contention.

Hydropower projects are usually designed on the basis of past flow records and the assumption that the climate is stable.  The one thing we have come to realise with climate change is that we can n o longer use the past records as a guide to the future.  So the question becomes; what strategies in your design and evaluation you use to incorporate CC into the development?

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Trial Run

Lets see if this works

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Belize Field Trip Days 2 and 3

Independence 18 March

The flight down from Belize City to Independence as been interesting, we flew over the coastal areas that show gradations of vegetation from a forested section immediately adjacent to the beach area to a back area of what looked like grasslands – open, non-forested areas.  On the way we could see large areas put aside for ponds for fish farming with broad channels carved into the land from the sea to provide brackish water to the ponds.

After landing at Independence, where we will sleep for 2 nights we left for Monkey River Village, no longer a town due to its small population. One of the features of the Village is that the beach is being eroded which makes it a good site to come and carry out beach profiling, which Dr Nurse has been doing for several years.  It is an ideal opportunity to combine some different strands of research combined in a field trip.

Myself, Michelle Wilson and Valance Humphreys worked together to carryout surveys within the Village focusing on water management and climate change and the changing environment in and around the village.  We targeted mostly older people as we thought that these would have a longer memory and this proved to be the case.  One of the things that struck us was the relative consistency of some of the information we were getting.  For example many pointed to the damming of the river by banana growers as a cause of the problems at the beach – a consistent theme.  However, these people we inferred had not actually seen the sand bar, but they believed from what they had been told that it was the cause.

The actual process of speaking to people showed that you have to spend quite a lot of time and allow people to talk to get at the sort of information you would like to have.  Often parts of it emerge at different points in the interview.  Allowing time gives people the opportunity to think around the subject and this time lets them remember points and share them that might not otherwise emerge.  The semi-structured nature of the interview also means that interesting avenues of ‘interrogation’ can be followed.

What emerged during the feedback and discussion we had in the evening was how much of the qualitative data could be supported by other observations and measurements but also how it brought that other information into context and gave it meaning.  The evening discussion was really great and I think it added to he richness of the day’s experience.

Independence 19 March

The focus today turned away from the coast and looked at the river processes.  One thing comes very strongly to my mind – there has been so much going on today that would make excellent material for the video’s.  There’s been the water quality testing, the interviews, contrasting flow gauging techniques, sampling along the river, looking at gravel mining, the contrast between the Bladen, Swasey and Monkey rivers, even perhaps a compilation of human use of rivers, etc.  I almost don’t know where to turn with all of this but I do think it would be a good idea if we could all share the information and images (moving or still) that we have gathered.

More immediately the river assessments today brought home to me issues of representativeness; how do we know that what we are observing is representative of what is going on.  It also highlighted the importance of transects, something we didn’t really get into but is hugely important.  It was mentioned that there are differences in farming practices along the Bladen and the Swasey that affect the width of the riparian buffer zone that farmers leave along the river.  The buffer zone along the Bladen is wider and there is more native forest left whereas the Swasey they farm right down to the river side.  We certainly saw some evidence of this today.  The other aspect was water quality sampling – just how much is enough to be representative?  We could also do with thinking about putting together a field kit for water quality work for such field trips.  All this has made me even more convinced that a better way would be to go down in kayaks to do the surveying and sampling.  I also think that there are opportunities to do more social/community surveys in the upstream areas.

Just from the feedback from various people today from the different things they observed there have to be questions about what is going on in the catchment as to my mind there is a far from complete picture of the various activities and forces at play here.  And that builds on information we had yesterday from some of the interviews.

On another point I think in future we need to build in a day when the results of the fieldwork can be digested and any calculations etc can be performed.  A catching up day could be one in which time can be spent in groups thinking and working on assignments etc – perhaps even mini presentations.

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Belize Field Trip

So today I have arranged for there to be a Moodle site for the field trip to Belize. This should be a common platform that all the students can access and will allow us to share information as well as what goes on during the field trip. Still lots of details to work out and I must talk to Leonard about the content.

Whilst on Belize we must still work out the detailed logistics of what we will be doing each day in groups to make sure that every one gets enough experience.

Also we need to work out the assignment for this part of the work. I think those are the two major outstanding items for the field trip. The rest is sort of covered.

Here's a short video on a recent Water Resource Management field trip in Barbados

The Road to North - Barbados

While travelling to the Animal Flower Cave on the north end of the island we came across this wonderful peice of coordination.