TUM Research Platform

- Urban Strategies for Onaville, Canaan -

Technische Universitt Mnchen

Arcisstare 21
80333 Mnchen, Germany

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITT MNCHEN, GERMANY

Research Platform Urban Strategies for Onaville, Canaan

PROJECT FRAMEWORK

Urban strategies for Onaville is the interdisciplinary platform of a small academic

research group at the Technical University of
Munich (TUM) consisting of several architects
and engineers. The project is a collaboration
between the Chair of Hydrology and River
Basin Management, Department of Hydraulic
and Water Resources Engineering, Landscape
Architecture and Public Space, Sustainable
Urbanism and Urban Water Systems
Engineering.

Since the project started in 2012 several

research trips to Haiti had been done in
October 2012, March-June 2013, OctoberNovember 2013 and April 2014. Another
research trip is organized for the end of 2014
(October-December) focusing on the modeling
and evaluation of integrated flood risk
management strategies for Onaville.

RESEARCH THEMES

Completed

Hydrology
and River
Basin
Management

Hydraulic
and Water
Resources
Engineering

Public Space

Urban
Strategies
for
Onaville

Urban
Water
Systems
Engineering

Landscape
Architecture

Sustainable
Urbanism

The platform follows an integrated urban

development strategy for Onaville in order to
find sustainable and viable solutions to the
most basic issues in Onaville including the
lack of infrastructure and drinking water as
well as constant risk of being affected by
natural hazards such as landslides and flash
flooding. Therefore, researchers from different
backgrounds (figure) as well as NGOs
currently active in Haiti collaborate with local
stakeholders. Especially the cooperation with
the
Port-au-Prince-based
Non-ProfitOrganization
TECHO
Haiti
enables
information exchange, research visits and
communication with local
community
initiatives and neighborhood committees.

Sanitation Strategy for Onaville (M.A.

Casanova, 2013)
Drainage, Water and Sanitation
Infrastructure
Improvement
in
Impoverished Areas A case study in
Onaville, Canaan (S. Kerwin, 2013)
Urban Catalyzers Places for the
community (R. Guin, 2014)
GIS based Flood Modeling as part of
an Integrated Development Strategy
for Informal Settlements A case
study in applying GIS (ArcMap) in
Combination with Hydrologic (HECHMS) and Hydraulic (HEC-RAS)
modeling software to estimate the
flood risk of Onaville, Canaan (V.
Heimhuber, 2013)
Cooperative neighborhood action in
Onaville Designing a process for
urban development and environmental
hazard mitigation in a rapidly
urbanizing
settlement
(J.C.
Hannemann, 2014)

Ongoing

Modeling and Evaluation of Integrated

Flood Risk Management Strategies for
Onaville, Canaan (W. Krtzinger, B.
Bchle, 2014/15)

TECHNISCHE UNIVERSITT MNCHEN, GERMANY

Research Platform Urban Strategies for Onaville, Canaan

Modeling and Evaluation of Integrated

Flood Risk Management Strategies for
Onaville (Bchle, Krtzinger; 2014/15)

The Modeling and Evaluation of Integrated

Flood Risk Management Strategies for
Onaville basically consists of two parts. A
flood risk simulation and a flood risk
management study.
The flood risk simulation implies a
hydrological and hydraulic modeling in order
to simulate numerically the flood extent in
Onaville considering different scenarios. Based
on the results of the flood study flood
mitigation measures within Onavilles whole
catchment area will be developed and
evaluated in order to reduce the flood risk.
Additionally, the suggested mitigation
measures will be implemented in the hydraulic
model in order to investigate their impact.
The project ties in with the results of
Heimhuber who did a one-dimensional GIS
based hydrologic and hydraulic modeling to
estimate the flood hazard of Onaville in 2013.
The aim is to optimize the whole flood risk
management process basically by providing a
better representation of the area of interest.
This can be achieved by using a twodimensional simulation and the inclusion of
sediment transport modeling. It also requires
high resolution DEMs as well as reliable
hydrological data (rainfall, water levels,
discharge etc.).

Bjarne Bchle
B.Sc. Environmental Engineering
M.Sc. cand. Civil Engineering
bj.baechle@mytum.de
+509 4489 8320

In order to investigate the area of interest and

to gather more information that is needed to
achieve the above mentioned flood risk
management optimization for Onaville, we are
in Haiti from October until December 2014.

Wolfgang Krtzinger
B.Sc. Environmental Engineering
M.Sc. cand. Environmental Engineering
wolfgang_kroetzinger@mytum.de
+509 4489 8320