David Meza
Geology 9

          Nicaragua being a country that is neighbors with the ring of fire unfortunately is impacted with many types of hazards. Some of the main hazards in this country are floods and droughts due to climate change. There are many things that this country can do to help with these types of hazards that will keep people safe. Nicaragua has many places that are impacted the most with hazards that people should know to stay away from and the reasons for it. This country has its dangerous areas but it also has many places that are safe for people to move to and build a home and create a family.

         Nicaragua in the recent years has experienced many hazards some that impact the country the most is floods and droughts and this is due to climate change. Now since we can’t change climate change from one day to another we have to learn how to work around it. Nicaragua experienced recently with hurricane Nate a lot of no warning extreme rainfall which over floods the rivers up in the northern part of the country in locations like Puerto Cabrezas (Balch Oliver). Most of the floods locations that are on alert is most of the coast like Managua, Carazo, Rivas, Chinandega and Esteli (Nicaragua Flood Map). Esteli Has more than usual because it is further up north where the water from the mountains rushes down and overflows the rivers (Esteli). I believe that floods are something that the country should not take lightly because enough water in the soil will cause landslides and that can sometimes be more dangerous than floods. What the country can do is for any further or existing roads or drainage systems, engineer them in a way that you can get water out as fast as possible without any barriers to prevent floods. 

        Nicaragua has also been faced with droughts because of the unpredictable climate change. They get their rainfall by surprise and how I mentioned earlier sometimes they experience too much water. This is a problem primarily for farmers to be able to predict the seasons for their crops. Nicaragua has taken a tremendous loss in their agricultural side and the prices of food have risen to the point where people are looking for alternate types of food (Balch Oliver). In 2014 Nicaragua experienced the worst drought during their wet season and the government had to act fast and provide subsidize rice and beans to prevent a hunger crisis (Balch Oliver). Nicaragua “The country’s second largest agricultural export earner registered losses of up to $60m in 2012-13 due to an outbreak of coffee leaf rust, which spread to 37% of the crop”(Balch Oliver). One way for farmers to keep a well maintained farm for most of the year is well primarily to use the water efficiently. What large farms are doing is using sprinklers to water their crops since most of these farmers rely on natural rainfall (Balch Oliver). I would also suggest to either construct wells or septic tanks where you can store the water or run plumbing from rivers, or small streams to the farms to get the most use of the water.

        Nicaragua has some locations of danger and others that aren’t too bad. For the most part as I stated earlier most of the coast of Nicaragua at some point has been flooded and is on the list of floods. For instance these locations are prone to floods Managua, Carazo, Rivas, Chinandega and Esteli some of these town are very poor and you can’t do much to prevent the floods other than to re-engineer where some of the locations of the houses are so that they are not affected by the rainfall or any landslides (Nicaragua Flood Map). Some of the nicer locations to live that isn’t too rural or extreme would be the city of Managua, Granada, and Leon. My personal perspective I would like to live and build a home in Managua for the simple reason that there is more variety meaning more things to do and probably one of the most popular cities in Nicaragua. If by any reason there is a flood in Managua the authorities are nearby and there is more authority at hand and available compared to the outskirts of some towns.  

          Nicaragua is a very beautiful country to visit and potentially start a new life. This country has its pros and cons just like with anything else. There is some hazards that affect the country heavily like floods and droughts. I believe that if the government puts some effort to try to re-engineer some of the drainage systems to have water leave at a faster rate and avoid landslides, but also be able to keep some of that water either in wells or septic tanks so that when there are droughts to be able to make the most out of that water. Nicaragua has its locations where there is help available just in case any one of these hazards is likely to happen, in my opinion Managua would be the best city to build upon because it is near the coast but also near the lake of Xolotlan where it is very popular and very touristic (Nicaragua Flood Map).        

Sources

Balch, Oliver. “Climate Change in Nicaragua Pushes Farmers into Uncertain World | Oliver Balch.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 10 Dec. 2014, www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/dec/10/climate-change-nicaragua-farming-drought-flood.

“Estelí.” Nicaragua | ViaNica.com, vianica.com/nicaragua/esteli

 “Nicaragua Flood Map | Map of Potential Flooding in Nicaragua.” Worldwide Global Flood Map, globalfloodmap.org/Nicaragua.


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