The Caribbean region is highly impacted by natural hazards (See Figure). In the last two decades the region suffered over 5 billion US$ losses from natural disasters. Its location within the path of the Atlantic hurricanes exposes the small island states and countries in the Caribbean to extreme wind conditions and torrential rains. This, in combination with steep terrain makes them extremely susceptible for landslides, floods and storm surges. Their location along the edges of tectonic plates adds tectonic hazards to their threats as well, including earthquakes and tsunamis for the whole region as well as active volcanism on some islands. On a longer time scale, sea level rise is expected to make the hazard situation worse for the coastal areas.The Caribbean region is highly impacted by natural hazards (See Figure ). In the last two decades the region suffered over 5 billion US$ losses from natural disasters. Its location within the path of the Atlantic hurricanes exposes the small island states and countries in the Caribbean to extreme wind conditions and torrential rains. This, in combination with steep terrain makes them extremely susceptible for landslides, floods and storm surges. Their location along the edges of tectonic plates adds tectonic hazards to their threats as well, including earthquakes and tsunamis for the whole region as well as active volcanism on some islands. On a longer time scale, sea level rise is expected to make the hazard situation worse for the coastal areas.
The small island states and countries in the Caribbean – especially those of volcanic origin with rugged and steep terrain – have limited suitable surface area for development and agricultural production. Most of the population live along the coast and most economic activities are concentrated. These areas are affected by floods (flash floods, drainage floods and coastal floods) and disrupt the socio-economic systems. Vital infrastructure that traverses the mountainous areas can be severely damaged by landslides, thereby isolating parts of the islands and disrupting the distribution of goods (and relief). Because of their size there is very little robustness in the system to deal with these impacts. As a consequence these events have a severe impact on the relatively small economy of these countries.
The national governments have limited human and financial resources to cope with these hazards and generally lack the expertise for hazard and risk assessment in their territory. This is aggrevated by the lack of geospatial data that is needed to carry out these analyses. As a consequence new development activities are often carried out with limited considerations to these hazards. It also hampers the authorities in developing pro-active hazard mitigation plans, such as early warning systems, preparedness planning and risk-reduction strategies.
The CHARIM project
In 2014 the World Bank initiated the Caribbean Risk Information Program with a grant from the ACP-EU Natural Disaster Risk Reduction Program. A consortium led by the Faculty ITC of the University of Twente is responsible for conducting capacity-building workshops, generating training materials, and creating hazard maps to expand the capabilities within participating infrastructure and spatial planning ministries to use hazard and risk information for decision-making.
The main objective of this project is to build capacity of government clients in the Caribbean region, and specifically in the countries of Belize, Dominica, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada, to generate landslide and flood hazards and risks information and apply this in disaster risk reduction use cases focusing on planning and infrastructure (i.e. health, education, transport and government buildings) through the development of a handbook and, hazard maps, use cases, and data management strategy.
The following sub-objectives are defined:
- To make an inventory of the needs of each target country in terms of their capacity for spatial data collection, analysis and management, (landslide and flood) hazard and risk assessment, and integrate this information in spatial development planning and risk reduction planning.
This was analysed during a series of workshops in the target countries in May/June 2014, and again during a regional workshop in October 2014. Detailed workshop reports were produced, which are available here.
- To make an inventory of the tools available worldwide in terms of technical training manuals linked with practical applications and in terms of methodologies applied for flood and landslide hazard and risk assessment at different scales, as well as open source modelling tools for these hazard types.
This inventory was carried out and was reporting in the preliminary assessment report in June 2014, which can also be accessed here.
- To develop a theoretical framework for landslide and flood hazards and risks assessments, based on the review of existing quantitative and qualitative assessment methods and their appropriate use.
The theoretical framework for landslide and flood hazard assessment can be found in the methodology book.
- To develop nine national hazard mapping studies in the five target countries. One in Belize related to floods and two on each island for landslides and floods.
- To develop a handbook to support the generation and application of landslide and flood hazard and risk information.
- To develop a number of use cases of the application of hazard and risk information to inform projects and program of planning and infrastructure sectors. The methodology provides the overall framework for the use cases.
- To make the handbook, data and methodology available through a pdf document and through a web-based platform, consisting of web-based databases, and a Decision Support system set-up for risk reduction planning
- To provide training courses based on the materials and the handbook, that is made available to the entire region through a web-based platform and distance education course in collaboration with the University of the West Indies