Understanding Local Perceptions of Climate Change Vulnerability in the Caribbean: The Case Study of Southern Haiti’s Coastal Communities

Abstract

Climate change poses severe risks to coastal communities in the Caribbean, where hurricanes, flooding, coastal erosion, sea-level rise, livelihood insecurity, and limited institutional capacity often intersect. Haiti is highly vulnerable to climate-related hazards, yet empirical research on how Haitian coastal communities perceive their vulnerability to climate change remains limited. This thesis examined how residents of coastal communities in southern Haiti perceive climate change vulnerability, local climate impacts, and preparedness actions. The study focused on coastal communities across five administrative departments of Haiti: Grand-Anse, Nippes, Ouest, Sud, and Sud-Est. A cross-sectional household survey was conducted with 449 adult respondents. The analysis examined the roles of demographic factors, occupation in climate-sensitive livelihoods such as farming and fishing, climate change awareness, disaster experience, fatalism, self-efficacy, locality type, and administrative department. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, bivariate tests, linear regression models, and logistic regression. The findings show that perceived vulnerability, local climate perception, climate awareness, and preparedness action were related but distinct dimensions of climate response. Disaster experience was the strongest predictor of perceived vulnerability to climate change. In the adjusted linear regression model, each 1-unit increase in the disaster experience index was associated with a 0.43-point increase in the Perceived Vulnerability to Climate Change Scale (PVCCS). Occupation in climate-sensitive livelihoods, such as farming and fishing, was also associated with higher perceived vulnerability, and administrative department showed substantial geographic variation. Local climate perception followed a different pattern. Anthropogenic awareness was positively associated with local climate perception, while perceived information sufficiency was negatively associated with it. This suggests that respondents who perceived climate change as visible and personally relevant also tended to feel less sufficiently informed to understand it. One of the most important findings was that greater disaster experience was associated with lower odds of reporting personal preparedness action (OR = 0.52). This challenges the assumption that disaster exposure automatically leads to preparedness. Overall, the findings suggest that adaptation planning in southern Haiti should not treat awareness, perceived vulnerability, and preparedness as interchangeable. Effective adaptation programs should provide practical support, strengthen community-based preparedness, address information gaps, support climate-sensitive livelihoods, and incorporate local knowledge into context-specific strategies.