The key objectives of the project were to:
- Provide a historical overview of the frequency and severity of flooding in Jamaica, and use climatic and non-climatic data to create an island-wide riverine flood hazard map.
- Assess and increase local knowledge, attitudes and practices of project communities regarding climate change through meetings and training.
- Create models for past and future flood events for the selected watersheds.
- Disseminate the results through community and stakeholder training workshops and radio interviews, and via open-access web portals for government and non-government stakeholders and private sector organizations to provide data for mainstreaming climate change in disaster- management strategies.
The project results will also assist Caribbean islands to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 13, 11 and 9.
Study Areas:
The project focused on two contrasting watersheds in Jamaica (Figure 1).

Engaging national and local stakeholders on the results
Community meetings were conducted in both Yallahs River (by Jamaica Conservation and Development Trust [JCDT]) and South Negril–Orange River watersheds at three-month intervals for the 18 months of the project with an average attendance of 30 members in each meeting. Those organised and delivered by representatives from the JCDT and project lead involved distribution of fliers on climate change and flooding in Jamaica, followed by presentation of results. In addition, information was broadcast via different radio channels both before and after major newscasts.
A three-day stakeholder workshop was conducted at the end of the project at the Department of Geography and Geology, UWI Mona Campus, Jamaica (May 2014), involving interactive exercises on climate information for Jamaica, dissemination of project results, and a day-long training session on the flood models and the use of the open-source data portal CARISKA. The workshop was a useful platform for sharing knowledge and information from both sides. Questions, ideas and insights from the various stakeholders during this meeting were used to refine the models developed by the project.
Future funding will support the training of stakeholder and community disaster coordinators in use of the Open Data Kit (ODK) App13 for data collection (flood data, damage data), followed by data analysis and uploading on CARISKA.
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