Water Resources Assessment of Haiti
Summary: The US Army Corps of Engineers' August 1999 assessment of Haiti's water resources, including the collapse of its hydrometric monitoring network.
Key Findings
- Lac de Peligre, the country's only major reservoir, had lost 30 percent of its storage capacity to sedimentation caused by deforestation.
- The monitoring network had effectively collapsed: as of April 1998 only 3 of 35 gaging stations and a quarter of hydrometeorological gauges were functional.
- Access was already far behind need in 1990, at 39 percent for water and 24 percent for sanitation.
- Population had outstripped domestic food production, which the assessment treats as a water-demand driver rather than only an agricultural problem.
Full Description
The US Army Corps of Engineers' assessment of Haiti's water resources, dated August 1999, covering surface and groundwater availability, quality, and the state of the infrastructure and monitoring network. Two findings give it lasting value: the loss of reservoir capacity at Lac de Peligre to deforestation-driven sedimentation, which ties water storage directly to watershed condition, and the near-total failure of the hydrometric gaging network, which explains why later Haitian water data is so thin. It is the most-cited water resources baseline for the pre-2000 period.
How to cite
US Army Corps of Engineers, 1999, Water Resources Assessment of Haiti, https://www.gvsu.edu/cms4/asset/CE59D505-D565-6FFC-FF0D167C69F76EFC/acoe_water_resources_of_haiti.pdf