Update on Haiti

Haiti Water and Sanitation Update

Water Station in Belloc, Haiti

Over the Spring break Dr. Mimi Sheller traveled to Haiti to present a final report on the NSF-Rapid research conducted in 2010 with professors Franco Montalto, Patrick Gurian and Michael Piasecki on post-earthquake water and sanitation reconstruction in Leogane. We held a meeting of the community groups who had participated in our 2010 Workshop and presented them with a final report translated into Kreyol, as well as giving a presentation and answering their questions. An English version of the report is available here: Final HAITI Report

We are also pleased to have published an article on “Women’s Water and Sanitation Needs in Post-earthquake Leogane, Haiti” in the online journal wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water, Vol 2., No. 1. The article can be found here: http://issuu.com/wh2ojournal/docs/vol2_no2. wH2O is a new initiative at the University of Pennsylvania that publishes an annual online, open-access academic journal and blog focused on gender and water/sanitation issues worldwide. Dr. Sheller will also be presenting this work at the April 9th Conference of the Philadelphia Global Water Initiative on Gender and Water: Leading Beyond the Burden. Information on the conference can be found at http://pgwiconference2013.wordpress.com/

Flooded farmland around Lake Enriquillo

Finally, Dr. Sheller also began work on a new NSF-RAPID project with colleagues at CCNY (see an overview at http://www.ccny.cuny.edu/news/spring-break-lake-enriquillo.cfm). The project, RAPID: Understanding Sudden Hydro-Climatic Changes and Exploring Sustainable Solutions in the Enriquillo Closed Water Basin (Southwest Hispaniola), Award #1264466, seeks to understand the causes for, impact of, and potential mitigation strategies in response to the rising water levels of two lakes on the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic which have submerged farmland, houses, roads, and are threatening entire towns. Dr. Sheller conducted 35 interviews on the social and economic impacts of the flooding with local inhabitants and leaders in affected areas of Haiti (La Source, Fonds Parisien) and the Dominican Republic (Boca de Cachon, Jimani, Discubierta).

Fore more information please contact: mimi.sheller@drexel.edu

NSF Research Award

NSF Award #1264466

RAPID: Understanding Sudden Hydro-Climatic Changes and Exploring Sustainable Solutions in the Enriquillo Closed Water Basin (Southwest Hispaniola)

The mCenter is pleased to announce the award of a Rapid research grant from the National Science Foundation, with the following investigators in collaboration with CCNY:

Jorge E. Gonzalez (Principal Investigator) gonzalez@me.ccny.cuny.edu
Reza Khanbilvardi (Co-Principal Investigator)
Fred Moshary (Co-Principal Investigator)
Michael Piasecki (Co-Principal Investigator)
Mimi Sheller (Co-Principal Investigator)

Abstract

The two largest lakes in Haiti and the Dominican Republic are, respectively, the Saumatre and Enriquillo lakes, both of which are salt water lakes. Lake Enriquillo is at the lowest point in the Caribbean, and is within several miles of Lake Saumatre. Both lakes have been growing drastically in size over the past several years. The socio-economic impact of this growth of the lakes has been very dramatic. Since the lakes began their recent rapid growth, more than 15,000 hectares of agricultural and grass land around the lakes have been flooded, having a strong negative impact on 2,500 farms in 16 communities with total estimates of 10,000 individuals affected. Urgency to address this growth problem has risen sharply over the past few months due to the unprecedented water levels reached. Further, the Caribbean is in the midst of its tropical depression/hurricane season, a unique time for embarking on a research effort as the Lakes are responding to these extreme events in a unique fashion. The window is relatively short and if missed would require waiting an entire year to possibly get a similar weather pattern passing through the lakes region again. Meanwhile, the emergency resulting from floods will have worsened. The research plan integrates observations, integrated earth-system modeling and community engagement and is designed to lead to accelerated documentation of the causes of the growth and to support policy formulation for handling the consequences. The urgent questions in need of answers are: Through rapid monitoring and modeling, can the hypothesis be supported that a warming climate is impacting the overall hydro-balance of the lakes? How is this hydro-balance reflected in terms of lake volume and surface area? What may be the response of informed communities to the emergency presented by continuously expanding flood lands?

In relation to mobilities research the question of how communities adapt to climate change and disruptions caused by changing environmental conditions is very important. This project builds on previous research on post-earthquake Haiti, and also involves collaboration between engineers and social scientists.

For more information please contact Mimi Sheller, Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, mimi.sheller@drexel.edu

 

Learning from Mega Disasters

International Workshop for Knowledge Learning and Sharing from Mega Disasters

World Bank, Tokyo, Japan

17-18 January, 2012

 

Dr. Mimi Sheller, Drexel Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy, joined a team of international experts invited by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute to provide advice to the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR) on lessons emerging from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 for developing countries. The team of 12 experts from the USA, Canada, China, India, Turkey and the UK convened at the World Bank Headquarters in Tokyo on January 17th-18th, 2012, to meet with senior development and risk managements specialists from the World Bank Institute, high level government representatives from several Ministries of the Government of Japan, and Japanese academics and NGO’s.

A second meeting will take place in May. The final report will be presented at the IMF/World Bank annual meeting, which will take place in Sendai, Japan in October 2012, conveying the findings to all of their member states. Topics covered in the meeting included structural and non-structural (social) risk reduction measures, emergency response and preparedness, the recovery process and reconstruction planning, improving hazard and risk information and decision making, and the economics of disaster risk management and financing.

Dr. Mimi Sheller

 

Haiti Two Years After the Earthquake

Knowledge Sharing from Mega Disasters

Drexel Professor of Sociology and mCenter Director Mimi Sheller will be joining a small team of international experts who have been invited by the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute to provide advice to the World Bank’s Global Facility for Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery on lessons emerging from the Japanese earthquake and tsunami for developing countries. In that capacity Sheller will be going to Tokyo from January 14^th-19^th, 2012, along with 10 experts from the USA, Canada, China, India, Turkey and the UK to meet with Japanese researchers and government representatives. A second meeting including  experts from Turkey, Peru and Iran will take place later in the year. The team will be writing Knowledge Notes for the World Bank, conveying lessons on disaster response and recovery that will guide and influence its actions in countries like Haiti. For the first publication in this series see the GFDRR’s Earthquake Reconstruction Knowledge Notes.

Haiti Two Years Later

It is now two years since the terrible earthquake that struck Haiti on January 12^th, 2010. Despite the promises of “building back better”, little reconstruction has taken place there. At least half a million people are still living in minimal shelters in what were meant to be temporary camps. Little of the promised reconstruction money has actually been spent. For some important updates on the situation, see some of the following sites:

Two Years Later, Where Is The Outrage? By Melinda Miles, Let Haiti Live Founder and Director, Lethaitilive.org

Haiti After the Quake: Where the Relief Money Did and Did Not Go by BILL QUIGLEY and AMBER RAMANAUSKAS

Our Drexel research team has been writing up and publishing findings, and is planning a return trip to Haiti in the summer of 2012 to distribute a final report on the project, disseminate recommendations, and determine future plans of action in collaboration with Haitian partners. Following up on NSF Haiti-RAPID Award #1032184 ‘Supporting Haitian Infrastructure Reconstruction with Local Knowledge’, with PI Franco Montalto and Co-PIs Patrick Gurian, Michael Piasecki, and Mimi Sheller, we have submitted the following articles:

HC Galada, PL Gurian, FA Montalto, M Sheller, M Piasecki, T Ayalew, S O’Connor: Restructuring in the Midst of Disaster: Post-Earthquake Water and Sanitation Management and Payment Options for Leogane, Haiti, submitted to Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.

M Sheller, S O’Connor, HC Galada, FA Montalto, PL Gurian, M Piasecki: Participatory Engineering for Recovery in Post-Earthquake Haiti, submitted to Engineering Studies, Special Issue on Engineering Risk and Disaster, eds. SG Knowles and G Downey.

HC Galada, FA Montalto, PL Gurian, M Sheller, M Piasecki, T Ayalew, S O’Connor: Transitions to Sustainable Sanitation Infrastructure in post-earthquake Leogane, Haiti: Including Stakeholder Preferences, Haiti, submitted to Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 2013, Special Issue: Geographies of Water.

Further Publications

In related developments, mCenter Director Mimi Sheller has had the following article accepted for publication: M Sheller, The Islanding Effect: Post-Disaster Mobility Systems and Humanitarian Logistics in Haiti, accepted for Cultural Geographies, special issue on Islanding Geographies, eds. Eric Clark and Godfrey Baldaccino.

If you would like continuing news on our project, please join our 347 Twitter followers @HaitiWater where we continue to post news relating to water, sanitation, and overall reconstruction efforts in Haiti.

Also see the Special Issue of Earthquake Spectra on the 2010 Haiti Earthquake, published by EERI.

We also strongly recommend the new book: Tectonic Shifts: Haiti Since the Earthquake (Kumarian Press, 2012) Edited by Mark Schuller ,  Pablo Morales