Over the past five months I have spent time researching natural disasters in Colombia: their causes, effects, and how the country is acting to mitigate the risks associated with these natural hazards. Due to the unique geographic location of this country, it is impacted by volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides, floods, wildfires, and even the occasional hurricane.
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| Index for Risk Management 2018 (INFORM 2018) - Inter-Agency Standing Committee Task Team for Preparedness and Resilience and the European Commission- http://www.inform-index.org |
The INFORM model adopts the three aspects of vulnerability reflected in the UNISDR definition. The aspects of physical exposure and physical vulnerability are integrated in the hazard & exposure dimension, the aspect of fragility of the socio-economic system becomes INFORM's vulnerability dimension while lack of resilience to cope and recover is treated under the lack of coping capacity dimension.
Though Colombia faces many natural hazards, I believe the main hazards facing Colombia are flooding and landslides. According to a static from preventionweb.net for "Nationally reported losses from 1990 to 2014", 61.5 percent of deaths and 65.1 percent of economic loss in Colombia were contributed to flooding or landslides. The 2010–11 La Niña rainy season affected approximately 3.5 million people and caused unprecedented economic losses and damages from flash floods, landslides, and other hazard events. More recently in 2017 and 2018, a series of landslides and floods affected the country nationwide, leaving hundreds dead and thousands of livelihoods disrupted.
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| NASA image of landslides in Colombia |
The region seeming to be most at risk for both flooding and landslides is the pacific region and so this is where I would focus targeted assistance first in the country. In order to reduce the risk associated with these hazards, better city planning, early warning systems, and not building near danger zones would help prevent disasters. According to a 2006 report from the International Association for Engineering Geology and the Environment, "The Colombian government implements landslide monitoring, mitigation and stabilization programs. These include improved methods for mining subsidence prediction, better building control, improved engineering practice and communications. With landslide hazard mapping, risks and vulnerability maps are now available for major urban areas." In the past 10 years Colombia has made great strides to implement disaster risk reduction policies. They continue to renew and revise policies, set up evacuation plans, educate the public, and put out warnings for disasters.
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| Pacific Region of Colombia |
When searching for the location best suited for development and housing, there are many factors to consider in Colombia. There is a unique situation in this country in respects to mitigating risks with hazards. Colombia has the highest recurrence of extreme hazard events in South America, with 84 percent of the population and 86 percent of assets exposed to two or more hazards. The most hazardous regions of Colombia, geologically speaking, are also the most populated. Below is a map of the regions of Colombia that I will be discussing in more detail.
The Pacific and Caribbean coasts and the Andean region experience the most natural hazards in the country. They are also the most developed. There is a rich and complicated history behind this phenomenon, but to put it simply, when settled by the Spanish, these regions were the easiest to access and develop. Therefore, with limited economic resources, new development has built upon the old. The Amazonian region of Colombia is not only underdeveloped, but it is also an essential element to our planet's environmental health and is therefore heavily protected by the Colombian government. The only region left to consider for development would be the eastern planes. If carefully planned and properly managed, this region would be pretty safe for it's inhabitants. There is some risk of flooding during the rainy season but if city planning was done in such away to redirect flood waters away from developed areas, it would not pose that much of a risk. However, this would be a tremendous project to undertake and there are other factors to think about other than natural hazards. Colombia is already stretched thin to connect it's population with transportation, energy, and water and so to open up the east for development would be incredibly expensive. Also since the eastern planes are not very developed, strongholds for guerrillas and illegal coca plantations are present in this region. If I were to build my house now in Colombia, I would choose to build in a more developed region like Bogota because there are more resources for prevention and aid in the case of natural hazards. For now I think the best thing that Colombia can do to mitigate risk associated with natural hazards is to continue to educate the public and have warning systems in place, enforce building regulations and codes, and provide the resources necessary to enact safety plans such as evacuation protocols. As well as planning, there must be practical solutions.
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