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Abstract/Description
As a consequence of climate change, changes in land use, and land management—especially in densely populated areas—numerous natural disasters, such as floods, storms, heatwaves, landslides, and droughts, are becoming increasingly frequent, with severe impacts on living conditions. This is the case for Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). At the same time, intense farming practices (particularly on sloped land), deforestation activities, mining extraction operations, challenges in agriculture water management, and soil erosion all contribute to increased land vulnerability. The purpose of this study was to review how the risks of natural disasters related to flooding, landslides, and soil erosion are assessed, measured, managed, and mitigated in the central highlands of Africa, specifically in Rwanda, Burundi, and the DRC. In this process, the risks and the current status of disaster risk management, early warning systems, soil and land conservation practices, and risk mapping were investigated for the three countries.
The literature review revealed a high risk for landslides, flooding, and soil erosion in the region. Risk maps covered the potential risks and helped identify the vulnerable areas. Most of them vary in spatial data, methods, and classifications. They rely on input data on elevation, slope, rainfall, lithology, soil texture, land use, land cover, and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The use of heterogeneous data sets and geographical regions in these risk maps may lead to diverging interpretations of potential risks and ‘hot spots’ in spatial terms and the underlying drivers of those risks. None of the risk maps take into account existing population vulnerabilities such as social protection, income levels, or readiness to act in an emergency, such as hospital access in an emergency. Risk maps could be an effective tool for supporting disaster risk management policies and implementations if they are nationally based and built on comprehensive, comparable, and reliable data.
With the rise of climate change-related risks, the need for expended risk mapping is expected to grow. Vegetation cover, deep-rooted vegetation, and soil management practices such as terraces, green barriers, drainage systems for overflows, or similar physical structures are useful land management practices that can reduce risks. Such practices, however, are not in place to the necessary extent in the region. In the case of disaster risk management, although strategies and action plans do exist, the study faced significant constraints in verifying their implementation and therefore, their effectiveness. This assessment is also valid for the prevailing obstacles related to accessing accurate and quality data in general. It is recommended that this desk study be supplemented with interviews and local data collection to address the identified information gaps.