By: Staff Writer
May 2, 2023
The Panama Canal is at risk of drying up due to the severe drought hitting Panama. The drought has forced authorities in Panama to reduce shipping traffic in the canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific as a water supply crisis threatens the future of the crucial waterway.
Two artificial lakes that normally maintain the water level in the canal and refill the locks have been depleted by lack of rain.
Six percent of global shipping passes through the canal, mostly from the United States, China and Japan. The alternative is the long and frequently stormy route around the southern tip of South America.
In 2022 more than 14,000 ships carrying 518 million tons of cargo passed through the canal, contributing 3 billion euros to the Panamanian treasury.
This situation led the ACP (Panama Canal Authority) to limit the depth of the largest vessels that transit through the canal for the fifth time.
The transit of vessels requires about 200 million litres of freshwater to be dumped into the sea, making Alhajuela and Gatún lakes vital for the canal’s operation. However, according to the ACP, from March 21 to April 21 of this year, water levels in Alhajuela dropped from 69 to 62 metres, while in Gatún, they went down from 25.6 to 25.2 metres
Alajuela and Gatun are the two artificial lakes that supply water to the Panama Canal. It requires around 200m litres of water to flow down a series of tiered locks into the sea in order for each ship to pass through.
Rainwater is the source of these reserves that power the locks, which can be up to as much as 26 metres above sea level.
The ACP says that from 21 March to 21 April, water levels in Alhajuela fell by seven metres – more than 10 per cent.
“The lack of rainfall impacts several things, the first being the reduction of our water reserves,” Erick Cordoba, the ACP’s water manager, told a new outlet.
It also affects business “with the reduction of the draft of Neopanamax vessels, which are the largest vessels transiting the canal” and the ones that pay the most tolls, he adds.
In 2022, more than 14,000 vessels with 518m tonnes of cargo passed through the waterway, contributing $2.5bn (€2.3bn) to the Panamanian treasury.