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Refugees, water balance, and water stress: Lessons learned from Lebanon.

ABSTRACT: The Syrian crisis caused a massive influx of displaced people into neighboring countries, with Lebanon hosting the highest per capita number of refugees (3:10). Water remains the most critical natural resource that influences the resilience of host and refugee communities. We provide a new GIS-based updated water balance and water scarcity analysis at the national and the watershed level in Lebanon by comparing current conditions to no-refugee levels. Results show a small (6%) increase in water stress in an average water year at the national level that masks hot spots of water scarcity at the local geography. While domestic water use increased by 20%, we find that refugees' water use is only 10% of agricultural water use in summer. We also show that interventions to rehabilitate the water networks can reduce water stress to better than pre-conflict levels (3% less stress).

SUBMITTER: Jaafar H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7128003 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Refugees, water balance, and water stress: Lessons learned from Lebanon.

Jaafar Hadi H Ahmad Farah F Holtmeier Lauren L King-Okumu Caroline C

Ambio 20191102 6

The Syrian crisis caused a massive influx of displaced people into neighboring countries, with Lebanon hosting the highest per capita number of refugees (3:10). Water remains the most critical natural resource that influences the resilience of host and refugee communities. We provide a new GIS-based updated water balance and water scarcity analysis at the national and the watershed level in Lebanon by comparing current conditions to no-refugee levels. Results show a small (6%) increase in water ...[more]

PMID: 31679109

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Project description:IntroductionRefugees and their healthcare providers face numerous challenges in receiving and providing maternal and newborn care. Research exploring how these challenges are related to adverse perinatal and maternal outcomes is scarce. Therefore, this study aims to identify suboptimal factors in maternal and newborn care for asylum-seeking and refugee women and assess to what extent these factors may contribute to adverse pregnancy outcomes in the Netherlands.MethodsWe conducted a retrospective analysis of national perinatal audit data from 2017 to 2019. Our analysis encompassed cases with adverse perinatal and maternal outcomes in women with a refugee background (n = 53). Suboptimal factors in care were identified and categorized according to Binder et al.'s Three Delays Model, and the extent to which they contributed to the adverse outcome was evaluated.ResultsWe identified 29 suboptimal factors, of which seven were related to care-seeking, six to the accessibility of services, and 16 to the quality of care. All 53 cases contained suboptimal factors, and in 67.9% of cases, at least one of these factors most likely or probably contributed to the adverse perinatal or maternal outcome.ConclusionThe number of suboptimal factors identified in this study and the extent to which they contributed to adverse perinatal and maternal outcomes among refugee women is alarming. The wide range of suboptimal factors identified provides considerable scope for improvement of maternal and newborn care for refugee populations. These findings also highlight the importance of including refugee women in perinatal audits as it is essential for healthcare providers to better understand the factors associated with adverse outcomes to improve the quality of care. Adjustments to improve care for refugees could include culturally sensitive education for healthcare providers, increased workforce diversity, minimizing the relocation of asylum seekers, and permanent reimbursement of professional interpreter costs.

Project description:Bangladesh is currently hosting more than one million stateless Rohingya refugees, who fled from the Rakhine State to avoid genocide and serious crimes against humanity persecuted by the Myanmar Army. The newly arrived Rohingyas were accommodated in overcrowded refugee camps in Cox's Bazar District (CBD). The camps are highly vulnerable to landslides, tropical cyclones, flash-flooding, and communicable disease outbreak. Although a number of improvement measures are ongoing, however, no study to date has addressed Rohingyas' self-adopted strategies to mitigate disaster risks. Consequently, this paper aims to explore how refugees cope with risks associated with environmental hazards in the Kutupalong Rohingya Camp in CBD. A mixed-methods research strategy incorporating both quantitative household questionnaire survey and qualitative focus group discussions (FGDs) techniques were applied. In total 250 Rohingya refugees were selected for the questionnaire survey using a stratified random sampling method from camps 17 and 19, and two FGDs (male and female-only) were carried out in camp 13 involving 21 Rohingya participants. Results derived from the study show that responding to early warning systems, storing dried food and medicine, utilising available resources, relocating to safer shelters, and keeping hopes high were some of the coping strategies practised by the respondents. Literacy level imposed a significant impact over respondents' perception to accept various measures. For instance, the probability of storing dried food in preparation for disasters was 4 times higher among literate Rohingya compared to their illiterate counterparts. Similarly, for literate respondents, the probability was 20 times higher to store medicine than for illiterate. Guaranteed distribution of shelter strengthening kits among all refugee households, the inclusion of disaster risk awareness and preparedness training, ensuring safe and dignified return in Myanmar, and global and regional cooperation to address the refugee crisis are some of the propositions recommended in this study for improving Rohingyas' future adaptation strategies in a humanitarian context.

Dataset Information

Refugees, water balance, and water stress: Lessons learned from Lebanon.

Publications

Refugees, water balance, and water stress: Lessons learned from Lebanon.

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