scholarly journals Digital inventory of landslides and related deposits in Honduras triggered by Hurricane Mitch

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin L. Harp ◽  
Kirk W. Hagaman ◽  
Matthew D. Held ◽  
Jonathan P. McKenna
Keyword(s):  
Hurricane Mitch

Legislation as Vulnerability Factor

2006 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-89
Author(s):  
Jorge Gavidia ◽  
Annalisa Crivellari
Keyword(s):  
Dominican Republic ◽  
Central America ◽  
Disaster Management ◽  
Good Practice ◽  
Hurricane Mitch ◽  
Normative Framework ◽  
The Many ◽  
Civil Defence ◽  
Interconnected Structure ◽  
Made In

A study conducted in Central America in 2003 shows that in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch noticeable progress was made in introducing new legislation for disaster management, understood as covering the whole cycle from prevention, preparedness and relief, to reconstruction. The new legislation includes civil defence or disaster management laws and regulations to improve their effectiveness in responding to the threat of natural disasters. A similar situation can be observed in other countries like Cuba and the Dominican Republic. The study looks into existing urban and municipal laws, regulations and planning guidelines to assess the extent to which they respond to vulnerability reduction criteria. This paper focuses on aspects of prevention and risk reduction. An attempt was made to look into the complementarities and gaps between the two sets of regulations for disaster management and for municipal/urban management. It is found that despite the many elements of good practice included in them, the links between these instruments are weak or absent on issues ranging from planning to the actual supervision of interventions on the built environment. Thus, the main elements of the edifice were there, but they did not constitute a solid, interconnected, structure, therefore, bound to fail under the loads imposed by rapid urbanisation, speculation, emergencies and weak governance structures. Institutions are often left to fend themselves in discharging their tasks. Without a coherent normative framework, and the capacity to apply it, their work is primarily driven by institutional initiative, leading to problems of underperformance, overlaps, gaps, and non-constructive competition. Thus, the institutional setup and normative framework become important factors in increasing vulnerability, as real as a building with the wrong foundations. The article reviews the mentioned aspects drawing from the experience in Central America, Cuba and Dominican Republic.

Cries in the Dark: Reconstruction after Hurricane Mitch in Honduras

2006 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-38
Author(s):  
Kurt Rhyner
Keyword(s):  
High Risk ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Construction Materials ◽  
Natural Phenomenon ◽  
Police Chief ◽  
Hurricane Mitch ◽  
The Public ◽  
Risk Areas ◽  
Mountainous River

Disasters are always caused by a combination of factors, and the natural phenomenon that brings them on is usually just a catalyst. The underlying cause of most disasters is poverty as mostly the poor segments of the population usually live in high risk areas where their shelter all too often cannot withstand even light winds, small inundations or medium earthquakes. When Hurricane Mitch hit Central America in October 1998, all countries were ill prepared. A few weeks earlier, the authorities of the Honduran capital, Tegucigalpa, had attempted to simulate an evacuation, but it had met with a great degree of resistance from the public. When Mitch hit, unprecedented masses of water raced down the mountainous river beds. People were taken by surprise, as no efficient organisation existed. Everybody ran for their lives. Houses slid down hillsides, rivers swept bridges, houses and people with them. Six years later, Tegucigalpa looks very similar to the days before Mitch. The steep hillsides are covered with a potpourri of dwellings, from miserable huts to solid upmarket houses. Regulations were passed in the year 2002 to prohibit construction in high risk areas; however, enforcement is difficult, especially when existing buildings are renovated and even enlarged. Theoretically it is possible to evacuate high risk areas. Nonetheless, such drastic measures are virtually impossible to implement, as no mayor or police chief would survive such an action in office. The paper presents a case study which shows that the underlying problems of poverty and the non-availability of suitable land for people to relocate from high risk areas can usually not be overcome by post-disaster reconstruction programmes. A mitigation strategy is thus to empower inhabitants of high risk areas to improve their own situation by affordable access to information, advice and suitable low cost construction materials through “Building Advisory Services” and Ecomaterials producers within the neighbourhoods.

scholarly journals To Plant or Not to Plant, That Is the Question: Reforestation vs. Natural Regeneration of Hurricane-Disturbed Mangrove Forests in Guanaja (Honduras)

Forests ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. 1068
Author(s):  
Thomas Fickert
Keyword(s):  
Time Lag ◽  
Rhizophora Mangle ◽  
Ground Cover ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Mangrove Forests ◽  
Hurricane Mitch ◽  
Living Plant ◽  
Line Transects ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Regeneration Processes

Background and Objectives: Mangrove forests offer many essential ecosystem services, including the protection of (sub)tropical coastlines, their inhabitants, and the infrastructure from severe storms and tsunamis. However, mangroves themselves suffer severely from such phenomena. After such events, reforestation efforts are widely undertaken to facilitate the recovery of the mangroves. Many of these laborious activities, however, fail for a number of reasons. Material and Methods: In October 1998, the Honduran Island of Guanaja was severely hit by Hurricane Mitch, and, after the storm, almost all of the mangrove forests (97%) were rated as dead. Seven years after Mitch, a longterm survey on the regeneration of the mangroves started. Field samplings in six variably disturbed mangrove zones was conducted in 2005, 2009, and 2016. Along permanent line-transects, all living plant species were recorded for statistical analyses and for quantifying progress. In this paper, the focus is on the three most severely hit areas. In two of them, planting efforts were carried out while the third one was left to regenerate naturally. This setting allowed a direct comparison between natural and human-assisted regeneration processes under otherwise similar conditions and equally severe previous disturbance. Results: Reforestation measures were characterized by high mortality rates of Rhizophora mangle L. propagules planted predominantly. Some, however, surely survived and might have contributed to regeneration after the disturbance. In 2016, roughly two decades after Hurricane Mitch, low-growing Rhizophora mangle forests, with high ground cover, were found. Surprisingly, the area without any planting also witnessed similar mangrove rejuvenation in the same period. Conclusion: Findings on the recovering mangroves in Guanaja confirm the lessons learned from other mangrove rehabilitation measures: planting mostly fails and commonly does not accelerate the revegetation of disturbed forests. In naturally regenerating forests, recolonization may occur after a certain time-lag only if few diaspore sources survived in the surrounding; as soon as established mangrove plants bear propagules, a quick return to viable forests takes place, proving the high resilience of these coastal ecosystems.

Posttraumatic Stress and Depressive Reactions Among Nicaraguan Adolescents After Hurricane Mitch

2001 ◽  
Vol 158 (5) ◽  
pp. 788-794 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armen K. Goenjian ◽  
Luis Molina ◽  
Alan M. Steinberg ◽  
Lynn A. Fairbanks ◽  
Maria Luisa Alvarez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Posttraumatic Stress ◽  
Hurricane Mitch
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