GEOSS Support for Decision-Making in the Coastal Zone: Managing and Mitigating the Impacts of Human Activities and Natural Hazards in the Coastal Zone

A workshop series organized by the GEO Coastal Zone Community of Practice

AFRICA WORKSHOP
Strengthening Observing Systems Capacity for Managing and Mitigating the Impacts of Human Activities and Coastal Inundation in the African Region
2010, Location TBD

The Second Regional Workshop in the Workshop Series of the GEO Coastal Zone Community of Practice (CZCP) will be organized in partnership with GOOS, GTOS, UNESCO, IOC, the African Association for Remote Sensing of the Environment (AARSE), Guinea Current Large Marine Ecosystem (GCLME), Benguela Current Commission (BCC), and the Agulhas and Somali Current Large Marine Ecosystem (ASCLME).

The second regional workshop of the series will focus on the specific needs, challenges and capabilities in the coastal zones of the African region. In contrast to the first workshop, this will provide a first critical assessment of the situation pertaining in tropical coastal countries of the developing world. This will also be the first occasion when attention is paid to the particular issues of coastal mega-cities. The Workshop aims to enlist strong participation from all the coastal countries around Africa. Socio-economic issues will lie at the heart of this African Regional Workshop. The burgeoning coastal population of Africa both looks to the coast for an improved quality of life through, for example, food and shelter, and is most at risk where the resilience of the coast is weak and becomes a key political issue. The capabilities in ocean observation and forecasting are fairly well-known, and it will be fairly easy to collect that information prior to the workshop by tasking sponsored conference attendees from each participating country to submit a 2-3 page white paper on the state of coastal observing capabilities in their individual countries. New knowledge on coastal vulnerability on the regional and continental scale has also recently become available (www.africanmarineatlas.net ). However, much less is known about the capabilities in decision-making and coastal zone management, in particular those aspects dealing with the terrestrial issues (runoff, erosion rates, sedimentation, etc.). A pre-workshop review of these capabilities can make an important regional contribution by serving as a vehicle to bring the land and ocean scientific and regulatory communities together.

Specific objectives of the Africa regional workshop will include:

• Comparison of scientifically sound scenarios for time-space extent of coastal inundation, storm surge, and erosion processes in the coastal zone and for impacts of coastal flooding on coastal infrastructure; human health risks (exposure to waterborne pathogens); ecosystems (e.g., water quality, habitats, biodiversity); and living resources (organisms and habitats).
• Assessment of present observing system capacities for providing the data and information required to assess changes in susceptibility (risk and resilience) both temporally (annual to decadal scales) and spatially (100 meter to 1 kilometer resolution).
• Determination of observing system requirements for the provision of data and information needed to quantify changes in susceptibility on appropriate time and space scales.
• Assessment of training capacity and gaps in marine sciences, fisheries and coastal resource management
• Promotion of an increased awareness among coastal planners and managers of geospatial patterns of susceptibility and causes of changes in susceptibility, both short term (e.g., coastal engineering) and long term (e.g., changes in sea level).
• Assessment of capacity for evaluating ecosystem services and resource valuation.
• Assessment of the existing policy frameworks for coastal resource management
• Pilot project designs, implementation of which will increase operational capabilities for the sustained provision of data and information on environmental changes across the land-sea interface that affect susceptibility.