As a uni­ver­si­ty fo­cused on us­ing re­search for the up­lift­ment of its com­mu­ni­ty, the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies (UWI), St Au­gus­tine, the pre­mier ter­tiary in­sti­tu­tion in the re­gion, pro­duc­ing world-class schol­ars, be­lieves sci­ence should be ac­ces­si­ble to the pub­lic. We of­fer this me­dia se­ries, UWI Sci­en­tists Speak, where our sci­en­tists, three of whom were re­cent­ly award­ed the high­est award of the na­tion–the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, will present some of their work.

This week, we hear from Dr Ronald Roop­nar­ine about the im­pact of cli­mate change on dis­as­ters and the need for proac­tive risk re­duc­tion strate­gies to im­prove dis­as­ter risk re­silience.–Prof Rose-Marie Belle An­toine, prin­ci­pal, UWISTA

Dr Ronald Roop­nar­ine

Amid the in­creas­ing fre­quen­cy and in­ten­si­ty of nat­ur­al haz­ards, cli­mate vari­abil­i­ty and ex­tremes, it is crit­i­cal that Caribbean Small Is­land De­vel­op­ing States (SIDS) im­prove their re­silience. While dis­as­ter/cli­mate re­silience tran­scends lo­cal re­spons­es, as a re­gion and as a coun­try, we must en­sure we pre­pare for and do what we can to pre­serve the qual­i­ty of our ex­is­tence.

In 2020, T&T rat­i­fied the Sendai Frame­work for Dis­as­ter Risk Re­duc­tion (SF­DRR). The SF­DRR spans 15 years (2015-2030) and aims to cre­ate re­silience against nat­ur­al and man-made haz­ards. Its key pil­lars in­clude un­der­stand­ing dis­as­ter risk, strength­en­ing gov­er­nance, in­vest­ing in dis­as­ter risk re­duc­tion, en­hanc­ing pre­pared­ness, and build­ing back bet­ter af­ter dis­as­ters. If we ex­am­ine the pil­lars close­ly, it is clear that con­sid­er­able ef­fort is need­ed!

In as­sess­ing the spec­trum of dis­as­ter man­age­ment ef­forts in the con­text of the SF­DRR, some ques­tions arise. For in­stance, do we re­al­ly un­der­stand the haz­ards we face? Do we have ef­fec­tive dis­as­ter man­age­ment at a na­tion­al lev­el? Do we in­vest ad­e­quate­ly in risk re­duc­tion? Do we “re-build bet­ter”?

Hav­ing per­son­al­ly con­duct­ed re­search in this area for over 15 years, I can say that there has been con­sid­er­able progress to­ward un­der­stand­ing the com­mon ma­jor nat­ur­al haz­ards, such as floods and land­slides. Var­i­ous de­vel­op­men­tal and state agen­cies with whom we have col­lab­o­rat­ed and sup­port­ed have al­so com­plet­ed nu­mer­ous vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty as­sess­ments, so we are al­so ful­ly aware of the pri­or­i­ty ar­eas. The prob­lem is re­al­ly at the im­ple­men­ta­tion end: we have not been able to im­prove our gov­er­nance mech­a­nisms ef­fec­tive­ly, we have not had sig­nif­i­cant di­rect in­vest­ment from the State in dis­as­ter re­duc­tion strate­gies, and most im­por­tant­ly, we have been un­able to “re-build bet­ter”.

Our gov­er­nance mech­a­nisms re­sult in du­pli­ca­tion of ef­fort, im­po­tent and am­bigu­ous leg­is­la­tion and un­de­fined or ill-de­fined roles and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. This of­ten lim­its ef­fi­ca­cy and im­pact. Risk re­duc­tion strate­gies are pri­mar­i­ly re­ac­tive, lead­ing to cri­sis man­age­ment in­stead of risk man­age­ment, lim­it­ing our ca­pac­i­ty to im­prove re­silience to fu­ture haz­ards.

So what can we do? The first step in­volves ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and pro­vid­ing av­enues to ef­fec­tive­ly ac­tion the knowl­edge gained. A pop­u­la­tion that un­der­stands dis­as­ter risk and its as­so­ci­at­ed con­se­quences is far more re­silient than one that does not. We must then en­sure we adopt and im­ple­ment con­tem­po­rary tech­niques to build re­silience and seek av­enues to fi­nance these ef­forts.

At the Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture, our new Un­der­grad­u­ate Ma­jor: “Dis­as­ter Risk Re­silience for Agri­cul­ture and the En­vi­ron­ment”, wel­comed its first co­hort of stu­dents in Sep­tem­ber 2023. This pro­gramme was de­vel­oped in re­sponse to a na­tion­al and re­gion­al need for dis­as­ter man­age­ment pro­fes­sion­als and is the first of its kind at an un­der­grad­u­ate lev­el in the re­gion. This in­no­v­a­tive pro­gramme will not on­ly equip stu­dents with the es­sen­tial knowl­edge and skills to ad­dress en­vi­ron­men­tal risks but al­so ac­tive­ly con­tribute to en­hanc­ing the na­tion’s re­silience, in­clud­ing cli­mate change-in­duced dis­as­ters. By nur­tur­ing a cul­ture of re­silience, pro­mot­ing in­ter­dis­ci­pli­nary re­search, and rais­ing pub­lic aware­ness, the pro­gram will serve as a trans­for­ma­tive cat­a­lyst, em­pow­er­ing fu­ture lead­ers and safe­guard­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s nat­ur­al re­sources and com­mu­ni­ties, ul­ti­mate­ly en­sur­ing a more pre­pared and re­silient na­tion.

At the FFA, we have al­so con­duct­ed sig­nif­i­cant re­search on var­i­ous as­pects of dis­as­ter risk man­age­ment, in­clud­ing gov­er­nance and co­or­di­na­tion mech­a­nisms to sup­port im­proved dis­as­ter man­age­ment and in­form pol­i­cy. Some ex­am­ples in­clude:

• Sup­port­ing the Of­fice of Dis­as­ter Pre­pared­ness and Man­age­ment and the Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gram in de­vel­op­ing a Co­or­di­na­tion Mech­a­nism for Flood Ear­ly Warn­ing Sys­tems.

• An As­sess­ment of the im­pact of COVID-19 on the Wa­ter Sec­tor and Agri-Food Sys­tem.

• Sup­port­ing the Trinidad and To­ba­go Bu­reau of Stan­dards in de­vel­op­ing a vol­un­tary stan­dard for us­ing treat­ed waste­water for agri­cul­ture and land­scap­ing.

• Salin­i­ty and Soil Or­gan­ic Car­bon as­sess­ment of the soils for T&T.

• Sup­port­ing the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States and Glob­al Wa­ter Part­ner­ship –Caribbean in de­vel­op­ing a Re­gion­al In­te­grat­ed Wa­ter Re­sources Man­age­ment Frame­work.

At the same time, we are al­so as­sess­ing: the ef­fi­ca­cy of var­i­ous Na­ture-Based So­lu­tions (NBS) to­wards im­proved slope sta­bil­i­ty, as­sess­ing the po­ten­tial of biosolids as a soil amend­ment, and ex­plor­ing in­sect farm­ing as av­enues to sup­ple­ment pro­tein for poul­try and aqua­cul­ture. These ac­tiv­i­ties all con­tribute to the var­i­ous pil­lars of the Sendai frame­work with the po­ten­tial to im­prove our re­silience.

As we con­front an un­cer­tain fu­ture with the grow­ing threats of cli­mate change and nat­ur­al dis­as­ters, our col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­forts at the FFA serve as a re­minder that dis­as­ter risk re­silience is not just an ab­stract con­cept but a tan­gi­ble re­al­i­ty achiev­able through sci­ence, ded­i­ca­tion, and col­lab­o­ra­tion. We must all do our part to build a re­silient T&T.

Dr Ronald Roop­nar­ine is a re­searcher and aca­d­e­m­ic with a thor­ough back­ground in Dis­as­ter Risk Re­silience and Sus­tain­able Land and Wa­ter Re­source Man­age­ment. He is a lec­tur­er in the Fac­ul­ty of Food and Agri­cul­ture, UWISTA.