Land of wood and water Why so many droughts?

As of September 30, the Mona Reservoir was at 33.5 per cent of its full capacity and Hermitage Dam at 40.3 per cent. The National Water Commission reports that drought is affecting 107 of its water systems, and some facilities are producing no water at all. For many Jamaicans, this means turning on the pipe and hearing air.

The water truck is the new business, as inconsistent supply forces families to ration, purchase and store water.

I have raised this before. In a recent article, I said the budget for irrigation, drainage and water storage must deliver these systems before the next drought. This article looks at where that money is going.

Where does the water go?

The NWC supplies roughly 190 million gallons of potable water each day from wells, rivers and springs. The Office of Utilities Regulation reports that 73.4 per cent of the water put into the system in 2025 earned no revenue. This includes water lost through leaking pipes and water that is never metered or billed. In Kingston and St Andrew and in Portmore, where the NWC has run loss-reduction projects, the figure is down to between 38 and 40 per cent, which means losses in the rest of the island are even higher.

We pay to extract water, treat it and pump it into the network. Then most of it disappears before the utility collects any revenue. Households should conserve water during a drought, but a country cannot ask households to save every drop while the system carrying those drops loses most of them.

Does Jamaica have a water shortage?

Jamaica receives about 1,870 millimeters of rain a year on average, according to the Meteorological Service of Jamaica. The rain does not fall evenly across the island or through the year. During heavy rain, water runs through gullies and rivers and out to sea. Months later, river flows decline, springs weaken and reservoirs fall.

The slightest amount of rainfall floods parts of Kingston and Montego Bay, our two main cities. Roads go under water, including Mona Road in Kingston and Catherine Hall in Montego Bay, and business activity slows down. Poor water management costs us during drought and again every time it rains.

Portland is one of the wettest parishes in the country, but some communities there still go days without piped water. Mandeville depends on water pumped uphill from the Pepper wells in St Elizabeth. Montego Bay keeps adding hotels and homes. The challenge is moving water from where it falls to where people live and farm.

The Government has started on this. The 2026/27 budget allocated J$11 billion to the Western Parishes Water Supply and Resilience Improvement Programme. Losses along the Martha Brae–Great River corridor are estimated at about 71 per cent.

How much has been budgeted, and where?

Over the last ten budgets, from 2017/18 to 2026/27, the Government allocated about J$69 billion to water supply and irrigation. These are allocations, not actual spending.

One of the most significant projects of the lot is the Essex Valley irrigation programme in St Elizabeth, which was meant to run from 2017 to 2020 at a cost of J$5.2 billion. It has since been extended six times, its estimated cost has risen to J$12.3 billion, and J$9.1 billion has been spent. It is now due in March 2027. Eight wells were drilled and five produced water.

Projects like this should be judged by the hectares receiving reliable water, the farmers connected and the yields achieved, rather than by the amount allocated. About 70 per cent of Jamaican farmers depend on rainfall. In the current drought, RADA has delivered 1,900 truckloads of water across eight parishes, and crop production was reported down by about 15 per cent.

Drought reduces local production, and this scarcity causes market prices to increase. This would not be so if farmers had reliable irrigation, which protects farmers’ incomes, the food supply and consumers at the same time.

What should we fix first?

First, reduce leakage. Recovering water we already produce is often cheaper than finding a new source. Other Caribbean countries are moving in this direction. This year I worked on the economic and financial assessment of the TransWater Programme in St Kitts and Nevis, which is being prepared for the Green Climate Fund. The programme divides the water network into smaller metered zones so leaks can be found and fixed, and adds meters at the treatment and desalination plants to track the water produced.

Second, build more storage, so we capture more of the heavy rain instead of watching it run out to sea.

Third, connect our water systems, so a parish with water can supply one under stress.

Fourth, protect the watersheds and aquifers that produce our water. Every new hotel room, housing development and farm creates a demand for water that lasts for decades. Water belongs on the same list as roads, electricity and ports as a foundation for growth.

Jamaica has water. What we have not built is a system that captures, stores and moves enough of it to where people need it, when they need it. That is a problem we can solve.

How has the water situation affected your household or your farm? Tell me in the comments.

Andre Haughton is a Professor of Economics at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, specializing in international finance, global political economy, the structural challenges facing developing economies, and development in small states. He is the author of Overcoming Productivity Challenges in Small Countries: Lessons from Jamaica and Developing Sustainable Balance of Payments in Small Countries: Lessons from Jamaica. He has been recognized as the University of the West Indies’ Most Outstanding Researcher (2017) and for the Most Outstanding Research Project (2024), was named UWI Alumnus of the Decade (1999–2009), and is an IMF Distinguished Academic Fellow. Beyond academia, he is engaged in entrepreneurship, youth development initiatives, and strategic economic thinking aimed at advancing Jamaica’s development trajectory.