1 / 10

FACTORS IN WATERSHED VULNERABILITY

FACTORS IN WATERSHED VULNERABILITY. J. RONALD TOUSSAINT AUGUST 2, 2006. OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION Environmental Vulnerability Concept B) Vulnerability Factors Environmental Socio-economic Governance C) Challenges Population Growth Development Agricultural Frontier

chul
Download Presentation

FACTORS IN WATERSHED VULNERABILITY

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. FACTORS IN WATERSHED VULNERABILITY J. RONALD TOUSSAINT AUGUST 2, 2006

  2. OUTLINE OF PRESENTATION • Environmental Vulnerability Concept • B) Vulnerability Factors • Environmental • Socio-economic • Governance • C) Challenges • Population Growth • Development • Agricultural Frontier • Loss of Haiti’s Natural Heritage • Early Warning Systems

  3. WHAT IS MEANT BY “ENVIRONMENTAL VULNERABILITY”? • Degree by which a country, a community or • a sector can be damaged by external factors • Result of the exposure of physical hazards that • reduce resilience • Threats can be a combination of social and physical • processes • Haiti: A mosaic of vulnerabilities

  4. WHAT ARE THE FACTORS? • Environmental • Climate ( hurricane frequency, abnormal drought • cycles) • Destruction of natural biological systems and • biodiversity • Deforestation (1,5%) and its corrolary: Soil erosion • and desertification: 1600 MT/HA/AN • Under-valuation of soil potential

  5. SOCIO-ECONOMIC FACTORS • Population: Density - 286 persons/km2 • Current Population: 8.4 Million • 10 Million in 2010 & 16 Million in 2032 • Population: Driving force of vulnerability • Poverty: Only Less Developed Country in Western Hemisphere • 146th on the Human Development Index

  6. GOVERNANCE FACTORS . Absence of land use planning . Massive growth of urban areas/ ecological footprint of cities . Weakness/absence of capacities at different levels (individual, institutional, systemic) . Multiple institutional mandates & confusion despite some progress

  7. WHAT ARE THE CHALLENGES? • POPULATION GROWTH • What steps should be taken to mitigate vulnerability and reduce population growth rates? • At what rate must we reduce population growth? • What is required to achieve a reasonable demographic transition?

  8. DEVELOPMENT & ENVIRONMENT • Environmental vulnerability of watersheds in Haiti • is an issue of uncontrolled development, creating • enormous environmental costs • Improved land use management at municipal • levels of government • Regulate land use according to natural potential • Advance of agricultural frontier • Will government allow agriculture everywhere?

  9. DEVELOPMENT & ENVIRONMENT • Loss of Haiti’s natural heritage • Heightened vulnerability • Declining quality of life • Overcoming constraints to achieving Millennium Development Goals

  10. EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS & VULNERABILITY • Early Warning Systems reduce loss of human life and damage • to property and fragile lands • Early Warning Systems must be integrated with improved • environmental management and ecosystem protection • Early warning mechanisms should support numerous • natural systems that buffer environmental disturbance

More Related