The 2015 Caribbean drought is an ongoing

drought A drought is defined as drier than normal conditions.Douville, H., K. Raghavan, J. Renwick, R.P. Allan, P.A. Arias, M. Barlow, R. Cerezo-Mota, A. Cherchi, T.Y. Gan, J. Gergis, D. Jiang, A. Khan, W. Pokam Mba, D. Rosenfeld, J. Tierney, an ...

affecting the Caribbean islands, from

Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago (, ), officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean. Consisting of the main islands Trinidad and Tobago, and numerous much smaller islands, it is situated south of ...

. The situation is further aggravated by the presence of an abnormal amount of dust and dry air over the southern Atlantic. Besides the especially hard hit U.S. Commonwealth of

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and unincorporated ...

, other Caribbean islands were affected by drought conditions to varying degrees. These include Cuba, the

Dominican Republic The Dominican Republic ( ; es, República Dominicana, ) is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean region. It occupies the eastern five-eighths of the island, which it shares with ...

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...

St. Lucia Saint Lucia ( acf, Sent Lisi, french: Sainte-Lucie) is an island country of the West Indies in the eastern Caribbean. The island was previously called Iouanalao and later Hewanorra, names given by the native Arawaks and Caribs, two Amerin ...

, and Trinidad and Tobago. The drought region also extends to Guyana in the northeastern region of South America.

Puerto Rico

The water crisis has affected primarily the eastern part of the island. According to the United States Drought Monitor, about 20 percent of the island has been experiencing “extreme” to “exceptionally extreme” drought. The situation has been aggravated by a lack of maintenance of the infrastructure, whereby more than half of the water supply is lost through distribution. July, usually one of the wettest months, saw only 4 cm of rain. The

Puerto Rico Aqueducts and Sewers Authority The Puerto Rico Aqueducts and Sewers Authority (PRASA; Spanish: ''Autoridad de Acueductos y Alcantarillados de Puerto Rico'') is a water company and the government-owned corporation responsible for water quality, management, and supply in Puert ...

(PRASA), responsible for managing water on the island, initiated

rationing Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, services, or an artificial restriction of demand. Rationing controls the size of the ration, which is one's allowed portion of the resources being distributed on a particular ...

in May 2015.

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...

simultaneously reported that 2.5 million people were affected while a press director from PRASA rather estimated that number to be more near to 400,000. Water supply is being shut off for up to 48 hours when rationed. As the drought affected crops and livestock the U. S. Department of Agriculture started to provide emergency loans to certain municipalities, particularly to those in the

Caguas Caguas (, ) is a city and municipality of Puerto Rico located in the Central Mountain Range of Puerto Rico, south of San Juan and Trujillo Alto, west of Gurabo and San Lorenzo, and east of Aguas Buenas, Cidra, and Cayey. Caguas was founde ...

valley who have entirely loss their harvests. Major tourist areas are exempt from rationing and continue to function normally. The water crisis comes at a time when Puerto Rico suffers a financial debt crisis, compromising its response to the drought. In addition, an economic recession has led hundreds of thousand of islanders to leave the island looking for work on the mainland, a phenomenon expected to intensify due to the rationing. The last major water crisis in Puerto Rico was in 1994 when rationing was implemented as well.

Notes

References

External links

US Drought Monitor
{{DEFAULTSORT:2015 Caribbean drought Caribbean drought Puerto Rican drought Droughts in the United States Water in Puerto Rico Natural disasters in Puerto Rico Caribbean

Puerto Rico

See also

Notes

References

External links