Enhancing resilience of vulnerable rural communities against hydrometeorological hazards in tropical mountains. A case study from the Sierra de las Minas, Guatemala.

Tropical regions are particularly vulnerable to natural hazards and cascading disasters. The geography and geology of these regions, along with intense rainfall, high rates of weathering, environmental degradation and global warming, contribute to the increasing impact of hydro-meteorological hazards. More frequent and intense events introduce new risk factors that can exacerbate existing vulnerabilities. The analysis of natural hazards in tropical regions faces several challenges, such as the lack of baseline data, which prevents the implementation of effective disaster risk reduction measures. Therefore, the integration of geomorphological, ecological and dendrological studies plays an important role in understanding the impacts of future events and building community resilience. Here we combine multiple sources of data and approaches, such as, remote sensing, field data acquisition, machine learning and physical modelling to develop an integrated coupled landslide-flood risk model for the Sierra de las Minas, Guatemala. This risk analysis will strengthen the development and implementation of appropriate disaster risk reduction in rural communities.

Sierra de las Minas is a very complex region due to coalescing events such as hurricanes, earthquakes, land mass movements and floods. The impact of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 is used as a reference to understand the frequency and magnitude of these types of hydro-meteorological hazards, the triggering factors and the multi-hazard dynamics. The results are subsequently used to determine the potential socioeconomic impacts of a similar event under current conditions of vulnerability and exposure. The potential socioeconomic losses are then compared to the impacts of hurricanes Eta and Iota in 2020. This information will be used to propose adaptation strategies, such as community-based early warning systems, pedestrian evacuation models and storytelling projects, that will help reduce the underlying vulnerabilities of the community to better respond to potential events to which it is exposed.