Guidance note on the application of coastal modelling for small island developing states: Part of the NOC-led project “Climate Change Impact Assessment: Ocean Modelling and Monitoring for the Caribbean CME states”, 2017-2020; under the Commonwealth Marine Economies (CME) Programme in the Caribbean.

Abstract

Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are very diverse, but have something in common: they are all vulnerable to human-induced climate change, but have contributed very little to causing the problem, due to their small size and limited development. Much time has been spent in debating climate change and adaptation strategies for such countries, but little has been done in developing practical tools to assist them in managing the coastal zone. In this report we aim to address that. In April 2017, some senior staff members from the National Oceanography Centre (NOC) visited St Vincent and the Grenadines, as part of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office-funded Neptune programme. At that time, some of the issues around coastal erosion on the east coast of St Vincent were identified, as well as some extreme events from which St Vincent and the Grenadines had suffered substantial losses of GDP. This was followed up by a workshop in January 2018 on ‘Implementing and Monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals in the Caribbean: The Role of the Ocean’, which was co-sponsored by the UK Government-funded Commonwealth Marine Economies Programme (CMEP) via the NOC (CMEP being the successor to Neptune). During the period September 2017 to March 2020, the National Oceanography Centre, funded by the CMEP, has been working with St Vincent and the Grenadines to provide knowledge, data and training about data analysis application and software for the use of coastal managers, particularly in order to address the problem of coastal erosion. We held a stakeholder workshop in Kingstown, St Vincent, in March 2018 and a hands-on technical training workshop in January 2019. A final workshop is being held in March 2020. Here we present an overview of coastal modelling methodology for use by Small Island Developing States (SIDS), including references to previous model review studies and guidance on how to access and apply model outputs, which will be presented at the workshop, entitled ‘Applying Knowledge of Coastal Processes for Coastal Zone Management into the Future’. This report seeks to collate the information on Coastal Modelling, which may be relevant to all SIDS, in order to support evidence-based decision-making. The case study is built around work done for St Vincent and the Grenadines. It is not the intention to explain in detail the technical working and development of models, as it is envisaged that SIDS will not want or need to run complex models themselves, but if this is desired, information on further reading and training is provided. Some of the simpler and more accessible models, with particularly useful applications in the coastal zone, which do not require computer resources beyond a laptop computer, are described in more detail for in-house application and their use in decision-making is explained. The way forward in regional collaboration and capacity-building is discussed.

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