Mexico’s Mitigation and Adaptation Methods

None of the Mexicans I sent the questionnaire to feel they had been personally impacted by any natural disasters however, the most common impact is getting a flat tire because of holes in the roads. Also, my participant from Mazatlán, Sinaloa stated that they lost their car due to one of the really heavy floods. Another one of my participants from Guadalajara said that they feel they have lost the beauty of the countryside as the forest fires has resulted in the closure of some national parks and country roads. Lastly, my participants from Culiacán, Sinaloa said they have seen people losing their homes and their lives due to severe flooding in the city.

Another interesting fact I found from chatting with all of my Mexican participants are that they don’t enjoy living in Mexico, this is because of everything that has happened and that will continue to happen regarding natural disasters. The moral in everyone’s hometowns aren’t great.

This dissertation has understood Mexico’s history of Natural Disasters. In the history of Mexico’s natural disaster section it details the five most fatal disasters in Mexican history. These are The Birth of the Paricutin volcano, 1943, The hurricane of 1959, Chichonal eruption, 1982, Tabasco flood, 2007 and The Twin Earthquakes in 2017. Collectively these five fatal disasters wiped out millions in total and ruined lives. This dissertation also discusses present day disasters and how my six participants personally feel on the matter and how they’ve been affected. The most active times for natural disasters to take place is in June to September, none of my participants have been in a natural disaster but the most likely ones to occur are earthquakes and hurricanes. Most of my participants do not actually know the difference between a drastic weather change and an actual natural disaster, this is perhaps lack of educational information given to them. This dissertation also identifies and understand the short and long term impacts natural disasters can cause, this is also further highlighted through my participants answers. Some of the short term impacts are aspects such as businesses and roads closing temporarily, whereas the long term impacts are people can die and peoples home are destroyed. There are some Governmental policies in place to try and help mitigate and adapt to natural disasters. Such as the updated version of the 2012 General Civil Protection Act. This act is a mechanism for emergency situations to allow all aspects of response service to coordinate with each other in the event of a natural disaster occurring. It also offers a full framework for Natural Disaster Risk Management and the National System of Civil Protection (SINAPROC).

This dissertation has also done a comparison between Mexico and other countries with their National Emergency Response. Lastly, this dissertation has covered what adaptation methods and what mitigation methods have been implemented so far and if they are currently successful.

This dissertation has been based around Natural Disasters in Mexico. I have managed to gather information from six Mexican Citizens, from a variety of different towns to discuss what natural disasters occur in their hometowns, if they feel it is their responsibility or the Governments to do more. Also, if they have been personally impacted by a natural disaster.

The six towns my participants come from are Monterrey, Guadalajara, Sonora and Sinaloa. I have three participants from Sinaloa, the towns in Sinaloa they are from are Culiacán and Mazatlán.

As previously seen above in my result section, the areas in which my participants live in aren’t severely affected directly by natural disasters, it is mostly adverse weather conditions like heavy rain and flooding. Whereas, in other parts of Mexico such as Mexico City and Guatemala which is located on the Pacific Coast and around the Caribbean - Gulf of Mexico. These areas are more prone to tropical storms, hurricanes and earthquakes. The reason the Pacific Coast and the Caribbean- Gulf of Mexico are more affected by natural disasters is because of high speed winds, the current from the ocean and the mass earth movements in these areas are much stronger at the coast as opposed to inland Mexico. Inland is less likely to be affected as the Coast takes most of the damage of the disasters and the inland only received the adverse weather conditions, floating debris or perhaps flooding as part of the aftermath of a natural disaster.

From the year 1980 till now the Pacific Coast and Caribbean – Gulf has been affected by 79 major natural disasters. It has since cost the Mexican Government over $6 Billion to try and recover the cities of Mexico affected by these disasters.

The affects are similar in-regards to the short and long term effects of natural disasters.

The short term affects for Mexico are roads and businesses are temporarily closed due to flooding or adverse weather conditions. Whereas, the long term affects for Mexico are homes are destroyed, schools and hospitals were demolished, and people can also die from natural disasters. Essentially, peoples livelihoods and or lives are taken.

Overall, the areas which my participants are from are not affected directly by natural disasters, fortunately. The areas along the Coast of the Pacific and along the Caribbean - Gulf of Mexico feel the severity of natural disasters as they are closer to the ocean. The short and long term affects are the same for both areas, as a community the devastation will cross the state after a natural disaster. The natives don’t feel the current methods in place are effective. However, the Government do feel the methods are effective, but they are working at a slow pace to ensure accuracy and precision.

In the grand scheme of things all my participants feel like the Government aren’t doing anything as it is ‘organised chaos’. My participants believe there are policies and mitigation/ adaptation schemes in place, but they don’t feel the government are following the correct protocol. This comparison would have been more fulfilling, as would the section on Mexico’s efforts to try and mitigate and adapt to natural disasters if there was English versions of the documents.

However, there are small mitigation and adaptation methods which have been done to try and improve the standard of living in Mexico. Every small change helps at this point and eventually Mexico will be able to say they have successfully mitigated and adapted to natural disasters.

This chapter will bring all the data I have previously researched and bring my analysed results to light, we will see what the real issues are and find the appropriate effective solutions for each of them. This is the last and final chapter of my dissertation which includes my conclusions and recommendations.

To conclude this dissertation, I have investigated Mexico’s Mitigation and Adaptation methods to try and tackle Natural Disasters; specifically, Hurricanes and Earthquakes. There are a variety of chapters throughout this report, each with its own purpose and explanation on my chosen topic.

My first chapter is my introduction to the topic, my aims, objectives, Mexico’s history of natural disasters, my rationale, the purpose of this dissertation, the approach to my data collection, the research methods used and lastly my ethics.

My second chapter is predominately the literature review, which is detailing everything I could find on natural disasters in Mexico, the background on Mexico, the early history of Mexico, Mexico today, different types of natural disasters, Mexico’s efforts to try and mitigate and adapt to natural disasters, the governmental priorities and policies involved and comparing the world response services from other countries to Mexico.

My third chapter was relating to my methodology. I also included the limitation which I faced during this time, the ethical considerations, alternative approaches I could’ve taken and lastly, my intended approach to data analysis.

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My fourth chapter detailed my results, I also explained and discussed all results and interpretation on any statistical figures found, there was a thematic discussion also provided based on my objectives previously set out and a comparison on my participants hometowns and other parts of Mexico regarding short and long term effect of the disasters.

The first and foremost objective which I had set out for this dissertation was to understand Mexico’s history of natural disasters, this was to see if there was a pattern or reoccurrence with specific natural disasters.

The second objective I set out was to identify the most common natural disasters of my participants hometowns and to establish the difference between them.

The third objective was to investigate the short and long term affects natural disasters have had on Mexico as a whole compared to the hometowns of my participants.

The next objective was to research the Mexican Governments priorities and policies on natural disasters.

The final objective of this dissertation is to identify the current Mitigation and Adaptation methods in place and see if they are successful and effective.

My main method of data collection was through the use of questionnaires. The purpose of undertaking the questionnaire, was to analyse whether or not the Mexican citizens hometowns are or have been affected by natural disasters. After all the participants answered all my questions I then analysed all the data and complied all the responses into a separate word document to make it clearer to understand.

Specifically, from the responses I received, I felt that I have found the Mexican citizens don’t feel the Government are doing anything to help them. The citizens feel it is their responsibility, but the Government is very unorganised regarding natural disasters. Not all provinces are prone to natural disasters in Mexico. So therefore, some of the citizens are ignorant towards the aftermath of natural disasters as it hasn’t affected them personally, almost like it isn’t reality for some of them.

Another interesting find from chatting with all of my participants are that they don’t enjoy living in Mexico, on account of everything that has happened and will continue to happen regarding natural disasters. By the Mexican government not doing anything major in times of need it is resulting in the locals immigrating into other countries.

The main conclusions to take from this are that the Government need to make the whole Country aware of the potential impacts rather than just the affected areas and ignoring what could potentially happen as no one knows what the future holds.

My dissertation has contributed to the community and hopefully some towns in Mexico, as I will make my dissertation available for anyone to read and all of my participants are entitled to a copy as their individual inputs helped my research massively. It has contributed from an educational view point, as this dissertation has facts and figures relating to real disasters starting from the nineteenth century. It has highlighted the key issues from a non-bias viewpoint and weighed will hopefully educate my candidates and anyone else who wishes to read it about the possible solutions.

Even though this dissertation has successfully investigated Mexico’s Mitigation and Adaptation methods to try and tackle Natural Disasters; specifically, Hurricanes and Earthquakes, the aims and objectives which I had previously outlined, there are still a variety of things the Mexican Government could do to help the poorer areas of Mexico to try and help minimise the impact of natural disasters. My recommendations are;

⦁ The first recommendation I believe would be of benefit would be for Mexico’s mitigation and adaptation methods, particularly the non-affected areas is to try and educate themselves on how to try and tackle natural disasters.

⦁ The Government could also send out newsletters, leaflets or have a section in the local newspapers dedicated towards natural disasters, how to mitigate and adapt to them for each individual community. Perhaps some preparation tips or methods in the event of a disaster would also be helpful;

⦁ There could also be more stricter weather warnings issued on the news or perhaps a programme dedicated to the cause. For example, a documentary on how natural disasters have affected Mexico since the 1900s and ways to solve these issues;

⦁ The local universities, colleges or schools could hold seminars or lectures about it to try and further educate the younger citizens of Mexico, to make them fully aware of what is happening;

⦁ The Mexican Government could also start a savings pot. For example, they could take a certain percentage of the tax received at the end of each month into a ‘Natural Disaster Aftermath Fund’ to help further support this ongoing problem;

⦁ Lastly, everything needs to be explained in more detail by the Government because the Mexican citizen are not actually aware of what is going on around them, especially the inland cities. I feel this would benefit the whole country.

I feel these recommendations would have widely contributed to my dissertation if one or all of them were already in place as this would have helped me in my results section. This would have helped as if my Mexican participants were already educated and knew the long lasting effects of natural disasters then as a community they would have been able to mitigate and adapt against the disasters together.