The purpose of the UWI-Trinidad and Tobago RDI (Research and Development Impact) Fund is to support impacting research that addresses pressing challenges faced by our society and contribute to the advancement of national and regional development.
The RDI Fund seeks to build on the UWI’s reputation for outstanding scholarly work in key development areas and its recognition as the leading institution on Caribbean issues.
The six (6) priority areas supported by the RDI Fund are:
The foremost goal of this UWI RDI-funded project is to perform an assessment of the beach erosion and coastal flooding hazards using differing scientific methods to evaluate their predictive capability with regards to the occurrence of the hazardous event.
Data acquisition at the designated geographical location will require two phases. The first phase of this data collection will involve the sourcing of secondary data from various private and public sector agencies. The second phase will be the collection of additional physical data to augment the required data set.
Data Processing and Archiving involves raw data assessment and data cleaning, extraction of relevant parameters (such as wave spectra and beach change indicators), casting the data into a format suitable for further analyses, and finally collating all coastal indicators into an analytical framework. This phase also involves cataloguing the datasets for retrieval.
Development of statistical & correlation analyses between data and selected baseline parameters. Correlation analyses and validated statistical are used to quantitatively predict the change of a given coastal indicator in response to various climatic forces at the timescale of the data collection period. The correlation analyses between the dependent and independent coastal indicators will be used to derive a longer-term series of the given coastal indicator.
Development of predictive models for beach flooding and morphological response, to include model validation and calibration. Numerical models will be used to determine the beach response to various climatic forces at the medium-term time scale specifically and a long-term time scale. Numerical modelling can also augment the measured data sets for analyses.
This activity will take various forms and may include a website, journal publications, conference presentations, workshops or seminars, and provides the crucial interface between the UWI, the policy-makers and the coastal practitioners.
The Research Team wishes to thank all who have been involved in this project and has contributed in any way during its execution. The Team acknowledges the RDI Fund for providing the financial support to execute this project. In addition, there were external partners who have provided immeasurable support formally and informally.
The UWI has initiated formal arrangements with:
1. The Coastal Protection Unit, under Ministry of Works and Transport; Memorandum of Agreement signed to facilitate data sharing and knowledge transfer between the two entities.
2. The National Energy Corporation: Memorandum of Agreement signed to facilitate data sharing and knowledge transfer between the two entities.
We also received support from the Institute of Marine Affairs to facilitate knowledge sharing and collaborative research, as well as, the Hydrographic Unit under the Lands and Surveys Division.
This research project has a finite time for execution and delivery; however there are a number of ways that the work initiated in this project can be continued:
