Author(s): G. S. Shrivastava
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Abstract: Trinidad is the most southerly Caribbean island; as shown in figure 1. Its climate is tropical with a dry season from January to May, and a wet season for the rest of the year; during which intense rain storms cause frequent, severe and widespread flooding in many parts of the island. As a consequence, every year, there are considerable disruptions in social activities, financial losses in the agricultural and commercial sectors, loss of human lives and structural damage to infrastructure facilities. Hitherto, the solution to the flooding problem has been sought through the classical hydraulic engineering approach of constructing flood levees, reservoirs and sediment traps, and dredging, widening, lining and straightening of river channels. However, this approach has been essentially ineffective because of its emphasis on flood control, instead of on flood management. It is now generally recognised that integration of natural and social sciences into hydraulic engineering is necessary for sustainable solutions to flooding and other problems in its domain (1,2). Therefore, this paper proposes an integrated hydraulic approach for flood management in Trinidad in the context of the 21st century.
Year: 1995