SPEIGHTSTOWN has been chosen as the pilot site for a flood mitigation study. It joins San Juan River in Trinidad and Mesopotamia in St Vincent as the three pilot sites that will be studied to find out how to prevent floods from causing significant damage and loss of life in Caribbean islands.

Regional disaster managers, educators, and scientists have teamed up with the Japanese for the three year study under the Japan/CARICOM Technical Co-operation Agreement. By the end of the period, they would be able to forecast floods, and create hazard maps which will tell them where will flood, when, and how serious it can be. Co-ordinator of the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) Jeremy Collymore said that this will inform government policy such as physical planning.

The three projects will be used to create demonstration sites and develop flood models which will be replicated among the 16-member states of CDERA. Unlike other projects, consultants are not coming into the region to design programmes but a four-member team of experts will train Caribbean nationals in the three countries to undertake the studies and implement solutions. These three countries as well as the three regional institutions involved have undertaken to help the other member states in developing their flood hazard maps and hazard management plans. The three institutions are CDERA, the University of the West Indies (UWI), and the Caribbean Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology (CIMH).

The UWI will be teaching disaster management and will establish a disaster management unit in the Department of Geography and Geology in the Faculty of Pure and Applied Science at the Mona Campus in Jamaica. The CIMH, which presently trains Caribbean nationals in meteorology and hydrology, will also help in setting up equipment and calibrating it, training users, providing analysis of data collected and researching data.

Japan's project leader Hidetomi Oi of the Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) said that talks started since 1996 and disaster management was identified as a priority area.

"Only after El Niño did they consider it important for disaster prevention and preparedness for developing countries," said Oi.

He added that while Japan also considered it important it was not possible to lend technical assistance to every country and so they are working through key regional institutions and they must be able sustain the project and help other countries.

Head of Barbados' Drainage Unit Charles Yearwood said that a local steering committee will be established comprising all the stakeholders, such as the Town and Country Planning Department, Environmental Health Officers, Ministry of Health, Barbados Water Authority, Ministry of Public Works, Meteorological Service, District Emergency Relief Organisations, residents and others. The idea is that by the end of the project, they can say what will happen should certain intensity rainfall or storms affect Speightstown. The flood map they will create will help the Town and Country Planning Department to respond to applications for development and also inform insurance companies on risks.

"This doesn't mean that you can't build in a flood fringe area even though we know it would flood every 10 years but the economic  returns of the development may outweigh the cost of flooding," he said. The three year project is part of the region's Comprehensive Disaster Management Strategy.