b. the quake itself and earthquakes in general
c. earthquake hazards
d. water resources during the crisis
A. While the Haitian earthquake disaster certainly placed a great deal of stress on the water infrastructure of Haiti, the reason that there is such an imminent need for water as part of the rescue and recovery efforts is that the pre-earthquake water resource infrastructure is some of the worst in the world. We looked at a number of factors that boil down to money and trees (and since the deforestation that has left the island with 2% of its original forest cover is largely due to the countries economic problems you could really say that there water issues come down to money). You should be able to describe how the lack of tress affects both the quantity of groundwater available and the quality of the surface water available. You should also be able to discuss the role of money in determining access to ground vs surface water and access to public services (water and sewer). By many reports, Haitians have the lowest per capita domestic water use in the world- much lower than the 50 liters/cap/day than is though by many water experts to be the minimum for proper health, sanitation, and prosperity. Water coverage in Haiti is 54% with 57% of urban, 14% of rural and 30% of the total population having access to sanitation facilities (numbers from the PAHO).
B. Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 04:53:10 PM a 7.0 magnitude quake's epicenter hit just 10 miles west of Porte-au-Prince and its 2 million inhabitants. The major quake sent 33 aftershocks ranging in magnitude from 4.2 to 5.9. 7.0 is a big but not huge earthquake. The magnitude of an earthquake is a measurement of the amount of energy that is released and is a function of the size of the fault that slipped (length times depth), the displacement (how far it slipped), and the shear modulus (how much force is required to shear them) of the rocks along the fault. The amount of ground shaking that occurs is a function of the magnitude of the quake, the proximity to the focus, and the composition of the substrate (the sedimentary rocks under Porte-au-Prince magnify shaking more than igneous or metamorphic rocks but not as much as unlithified sediments). A good description of the Haiti Region Earthquake here.
C. Haiti's government estimates the quake killed 200,000 people (also reported by the European Commission), 250,000 people were injured, and 2 million are homeless (in a nation of 9 million). From a hazards standpoint, this was one of the deadliest earthquakes in human history. The severity of the earthquake hazard is a function of:
construction methods
time of day
government preparedness and emergency infrastructure
public education and individual preparedness
population density
You should be able to discuss how important each of these factors was in determining how deadly the Haiti Region earthquake was.
D. Finally, we discussed the effects that the earthquake had on the water resources in Haiti (damages to infrastructure and 2 million homeless with limited sanitation facilities) and why the need to supply water to the area affected by the quake is so great. Appropriate responses recommended by the op-eds that we read by Solomon and Gleick included: desalination systems (small-scale units brought in via airplane until large-scale units on US military vessels could be brought in), trucking in water from the DR, using large soda bottling plants in the DR to bottle water for Haiti, bringing in bottled water from overseas, and immediate repair (and, hopefully improvement) of municipal water infrastructure.
We are going to switch gears and talk about floods in lecture tomorrow. Applied Principles of Hydrology has very little to say about flooding! Read pages 200 to the top of 203 for class on Wednesday.
PowerPoint slides shown in lecture today are now available as a .pdf on Sakai.
The my maps page has been updated with the locations mentioned in today's lecture.
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