The DEED project, funded by USAID, aims to reduce the impact of natural hazards through watershed management in Haiti. The project focuses on the Limbé and Montrouis watersheds, where local governments have relatively strong capacity to plan for and respond to disasters, but need development in risk assessment and mitigation. Community-level disaster management efforts need to focus on several additional hazards, including wind and drought.
The consultancy report highlights the importance of incorporating disaster risk reduction concepts and measures into watershed management strategies and activities. The report defines disaster risk management as a broader approach that includes preparedness, mitigation, and other risk reduction measures. This approach is essential for reducing the impact of natural hazards, such as drought, floods, high wind, landslides, and others, which are prevalent in the project areas.
Haiti’s disaster history, hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks are relatively well-documented at a national level, but the specificity and availability of frequency and impact information diminish as one goes to the community level. The report provides a summary list of hazards encountered in Haiti, including drought, flooding, sea surge, earthquake, hail, coastal erosion, subsidence, high wind, landslide, fire, disease, displaced populations, air and water pollution, erosion, deforestation, road, sea, and air transport accidents, building collapse, chemical spills, industrial and mining waste, groundwater contamination, civil unrest, and armed insurrection.
The report notes that a long-term increase in disaster impact in Haiti is likely linked to the increase in population, leading to more people in hazardous locations and changes to local environmental conditions. The lack of spatial planning incorporating hazard impact assessments has contributed to a worsening of hazard impacts. The report emphasizes the need for a formal integration of risk reduction into project activities and approaches to strengthen and preserve DEED project impacts.
Key recommendations include expanding DEED’s work in disaster risk reduction to include wind and drought hazards and support to local disaster management committees, developing site-specific hazard management plans for hazard locations identified through hazard mapping using community-based methods, mapping flood zones for Limbé/Bas Limbé at the 1:3000 to 1:5000 scale, improving the informal early warning system in the Limbé watershed, developing and disseminating agriculture risk reduction guidance for floods, wind, hail, and drought, incorporating risk reduction into infrastructure-related activities, and incorporating environmentally friendly approaches into project infrastructure interventions.
The consultancy report highlights the importance of a disaster risk management approach that incorporates preparedness, mitigation, and other risk reduction measures to reduce the impact of natural hazards in Haiti. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks in Haiti and emphasizes the need for a formal integration of risk reduction into project activities and approaches to strengthen and preserve DEED project impacts.