Photo: Clear-cutting in the Kundzianiskhevi River watershed (Tokhliauri Village, Sagarejo Municipality)
The State Audit Office published a report on the efficient management of emergency situations caused by floods.
The study has revealed significant deficiencies in the natural disaster management system, which is why “84% of the activities prescribed by the Action Plan 2017-2020 of the National Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy of Georgia are postponed and unfulfilled.”
Among the systemic faults of disaster risk reduction funding, current preventative practices, which are limited to bank protection and cleaning activities conducted in municipal areas, are emphasized. The Audit Office deems the allocation of budget funds for such activities as inefficient. According to the document, “Flood prevention cannot take place by the construction of dams and gabions only, since, along with other factors, forest cutting is a cause of floods. Even though municipalities conduct preventive measures within their administrative boundaries, a cause of disaster may go beyond the scope of the municipality and be a result of cutting taking place in a forest area in specific valleys which is an area under the management of the Ministry of Environment.”
According to the report, forest cover management and prohibiting cutting in risk zones is a strategic priority of developed countries. In contrast, national risk reduction strategic documents do not consider forest cover management as a flood prevention activity. Forest cutting is identified in the high conservation value forests, which is illegal by nature and increases the risk of disasters. Weak cooperation among various subjects of the system is also mentioned among the other key findings in the document. According to the facts identified as a result of the audit, because of the lack of a system to exchange information, problems identified by one agency cannot be responded to by the other agencies.
Excessive urbanization on river banks is another problem. According to legislation, when issuing a permit for construction in the areas of engineering protection of embankment, a permit from the Roads Department of Georgia is required. However, as the audit has shown, “the Department received only 7 applications of the kind from 2015-2019 and the construction on river banks is conducted without a permit.”
The Audit Office addresses the National Security Council, the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure, Emergency Management Service, the Ministry of Environment and Agriculture with the recommendations to conduct prevention and readiness measures and to eradicate the gaps in coordination of the disaster management process. All recommendations prepared for the Ministry of Environment and Agriculture are related to various aspects of forest management.
Materials used for the study of mudflow river basins, which was conducted by CENN within the scope of Sustainable Forest Management for Rural Development Project, funded by the Austrian Development Cooperation (ADC), are included in the audit report.
To view the complete version of the report, please view the link.
