Regional Risk Reduction Initiative (R31) Coastal Hazard Analysis Seminar

ROADTOWN Tortola BVI, July 27th, 2011 – Yesterday, employees from various Government and Statutory agencies attended a one day Coastal Hazard Analysis Seminar at Moorings Marina Inn.

The presentation and discussions at this seminar examined the potential risks and exposure to the impact of tsunamis and storm surge on populated areas in the Virgin Islands which included Road Town, Spanish Town, Great Harbour, and The Settlement.

This seminar is part of the Regional Risk Reduction Initiative (R3i) Project which will support disaster management and GIS departments with modeling, simulation and planning through the intra-regional learning and sharing of tools, knowledge and best practices to enhance the Dutch and English Speaking Overseas Territories’ individual and collective capacities.

The Coastal Hazard Analysis component of the R3i Project aims to undertake a hydrodynamic model of the potential impact of tsunamis and storm surge in the Virgin Islands. Earlier this year, UNDP awarded a contract to Smith Warner International, who is a regional specialist coastal environmental engineering firm with offices in Jamaica, St Lucia and Barbados and Deltares a leading independent consultancy research institute based in the Netherlands, with over 80 years of consulting experiencing in water and coastal related issues.

The consultants spent two weeks in the Territory in May conducting a number of interviews with persons from agencies relevant to the planning process in order to collect baseline information needed as part of the initial Phase of the project.

At the seminar held yesterday Dr. David Smith of Smith Warner International presented his Inception Report which included the Data Collection Program, Model Selection and the development of Model Grids and proposed Model Scenarios for storm surge and tsunamis. In his presentation Smith said, “The way forward looks promising.

We have plans to be back in the Territory within the next two months to commence phases II and III simultaneously which involves data collection of water depths around the Virgin Islands and the setting up of a sophisticated computer modelling system that will do simulations and predictions of storm surge and tsunami limits for the islands.”

Coming out of these discussions were recommendations to improve the Inception Phase and decisions on how to proceed with the Data Collection and Modeling Development Phases.

The session was facilitated by the Department of Disaster Management (DDM) in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), under the R3i Project. R3i is funded by the European Commission who allotted €4.932M, covering a period of 3 years from 2009 to 2011.

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