Humanitarian Engineering for Renewable Energy and Flood Early Warning in Remote Communities: A Scoping Review of Enabling Factors and Sustainability

Abstract

Small communities in remote, riparian sites often have limited resources, and experience energy insufficiencies and poor disaster resilience to intensifying weather hazards such as rainstorms and floods. Humanitarian engineering interventions for off-grid renewable energy generation and flood response at the local level have the potential to support community hazard management and socio-economic development. This scoping review examines communities in low and lower middle-income countries, and their use of renewable energy and flood warning systems. Its primary focus is vulnerable communities and how they can achieve hazard protection as part of sustainable development initiatives. The findings highlight that it is important to consider institutional, environmental, social/ethical, economic and technical indicators in developing a comprehensive understanding of the success or failure of a given system. The study concludes that an integrated renewable energy and flood warning system may provide an optimal, community-managed approach to address priority needs.

Keywords

• hydropower; solar energy; appropriate technology; developing countries; hybrid system.