Last night we told you about the world class Lidar system that the Caribbean Climate Change Center in Belmopan is acquiring. It will inform planning throughout the Caribbean in terms of how to situate roads and communities to avoid the effects of climate change.
And perhaps fittingly the launch was held at the Municipal Airstrip - where over 10 million dollars was recently spent to build an airstrip right beside the rising sea. Dr. Kenrick Leslie seemed to think it was not such a good idea:..
Dr. Kenrick Leslie- Director, Climate Change Center
"Most of our infrastructure in the countries are along the coast and if we are to understand how sea level rise, hurricane surge and so on will impact us. So we can do proper engineering design. Engineers have been getting away over the years in designing roads and so on, by saying we don’t have the proper data to do proper drainage and so on. This will allow to do detail topographic surveys that they can use as inputs in their design. We can’t stop hurricanes, but we can reduce the impact by having the detail data that are required."
Jules Vasquez, reporter
"Explain to me, with this sort of technology, might even a place like this airstrip might have built in a different way?"
Dr. Kenrick Leslie- Director, Climate Change Center
"No, but we live with what we have today. However, that doesn’t mean we have to live with this into the future and this is where it becomes critical. This airstrip will have a lifetime. However, future designs like our roads in this area should be better informed and therefore we should not repeat what we are doing today. This we can accept as today, meeting the needs of today."
The airstrip project cost 17 million dollars.
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