He also announced the start of a study on the causes behind Enriquillo’s and Sumatre’s rising waters, which have flooded farms and cattle pastures.

what's the purpose????..... the headline says deforestation.....or is the study just another form of nepotism?????

Deforestation normally causes bodies of water to dry up because of evaporation.

Can't see the logics in this one.

Hypothesis: rain

Water Polo, one of Haiti's biggest problems is that rain, especially hurricanes, has nowhere to be absorbed because the overall tree cover is so low. It instead turns turnes little rivers into big ones and turns urban streets into new ones. Haiti is mostly mountianous so it just carries abunch of top soil and other shit on the often barren mountains to the sea, and through any settlements on the way down.
Gonaives is probably the worst example I've seen. It was the site of a series of devastating hurricanes in 2004 (Jeanne) & 2008 (Hanna). I passed through in 2009 and there was literally a new lake outside of town that had completely covered up that section of National Highway #1. We had to go through these backroads and through the town itself, which was a mess, you could see the water/mudlines on almost anything standing. This past week alone has left dozen or so people dead around the capital dead from heavy rains, poor structures, poor drainage, and mountainous land.

That area is baron of trees due to burning for wood coal. On the Haitian side it looks like total deforestation and a huge part on the Dominican side is following suit.

Without trees to absorb rainfall you have these issues that will not go away anytime soon. It's not Mother Nature it's Human Nature.

Sediment/silt