Adapting to climate change through integrated water management in Panama

Panama is considered a highly vulnerable country to climate change impacts. Panama experiences a series of extreme weather events including intense and protracted rainfalls, windstorms, floods, droughts, wildfires, earthquakes, landslides, tropical cyclones, tsunamis and ENSO/El Niño-La Niña events.

Panama is considered one of the countries with the largest water resources, approximately 35,000 m3 of renewable freshwater resources per capita. This relative abundance scenario hides a series of regional and seasonal limitations, specifically those associated to the most arid region of the country known as the “Arco Seco”. This relative water abundance scenario and increasing conflicts are aggravated by climate variability and extreme weather events, mainly droughts and floods, where users and authorities have a lack of means and information to face them timely and effectively.

This project situates water management at the center of the adaptation efforts, promoting climate resilience and vulnerability reduction through enhancing food and energy security, based on an integrated water resources management approach that highlights the water-energy-food-climate change adaptation nexus. To do this, the project will focus efforts in two river watersheds, Chiriquí Viejo and Santa María, both prioritized in light of its water resources, its importance for energy and food production at a national scale, and the existence of unsolved conflicts among water users.

The overall objective of this programme is to establish climate resilience water management to enhance food and energy security at the national level, including an integrated and community-based approach in the Chiriqui Viejo and Santa Maria Watersheds. Specifically, the programme will be addressing the following objectives:

• Increasing climate change and variability adaptation capacity in agriculture, livestock and energy production sectors;
• establishing climate resilient water management instruments with integrated and community based approach;
• strengthening local national capacity for monitoring and decision making to reduce and respond to risks associated to climate change; and
• raising awareness and establish a knowledge exchange platform to respond to and to reduce impacts of climate related events.

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