CDMP Progress Bulletin

Curriculum Development for Natural Hazard Mitigation

 Bulletin Date: December 1999

The Caribbean region is prone to a wide variety of natural hazards. Because of the range and frequency of hazards in the region, no group or sector is immune from their effects. Sustainable approaches to hazard vulnerability reduction, therefore, must include a correspondingly wide variety of groups. The Caribbean Disaster Mitigation Project (CDMP) has taken this approach, addressing hazard mitigation in the housing, lifeline infrastructure, insurance, development planning, and community preparedness sectors. To ensure that the information and experiences developed under the CDMP are widely used and incorporated into the fundamentals of these fields, CDMP is supporting the development of courses (either stand-alone or modules in existing courses) on hazards and hazard mitigation in tertiary institutions in the region. In October 1999, CDERA and the CDMP organized a workshop on the "Integration of Disaster Management into the Curriculum of the Caribbean Universities." This workshop was held in conjunction with the Third Caribbean Conference on Natural Hazards. CDERA has compiled recommendations from this workshop.

Work on the following courses, with the support of CDMP, was undertaken during 1999.

Modular Training Courses in Safe Construction Practices

The University of Technology (UTECH) in Jamaica is enhancing its current curriculum to increase the awareness and skill level of building practitioners regarding safe construction practices under threat of climatic, geologic and seismic hazards. The target audience for this curriculum program includes practicing professionals, para- and semi-professionals, tradespersons, supervisors and small bussiness persons in the building and construction industry. With the support of CDMP, UTECH developed detailed outlines for these modules, identified where the modules can be incorporated into existing courses and prepared an implementation plan for the stand-alone course and the individual modules.

Analysis and Management of Geohazards and Risks

The Unit for Disaster Studies (UDS) of the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, developed this new course for inclusion in the standard curriculum of the Department of Geography and Geology. The focus of this course is to foster an understanding of the Earth's geologic, tectonic and atmospheric processes which give rise to natural hazards, with particular emphasis on the Caribbean. This course aims to integrate the various scientific disciplines that address these problems and to explore innovative strategies for effective management of hazards and risks. It will also explore the use of new technology, such as geographic information systems, to hazard management. The target audience for this course is university students and professionals wishing to upgrade their skills. The course is scheduled to be first taught in the summer of 2000.

Multi-hazard Building Design

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has developed a course on designing buildings and structures to withstand the stresses imposed by a range of hazards. The CDMP sponsored a participant from the Caribbean in this 'Multi-hazard Building Design Summer Institute' during the summer of 1999. Building on this course experience and existing course materials, the engineering faculty of UWI/St. Augustine has proposed to craft a Caribbean version of the course, for inclusion in its curriculum.

Related sites

The US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is developing a range of disaster management courses for use in colleges and universities across the United States. Information on this effort is available through the web page for FEMA's Emergency Management Institute: http://www.fema.gov/EMI/edu/higher.htm.