Location
Beira, Mozambique, Africa
Overview
Mozambique experiences frequent and severe flooding and cyclones along its coasts, threatening the lives of local communities and causing large-scale destruction of its cities’ infrastructure. In order to protect the communities, infrastructure and coastal environment of the city of Beira, Dar is providing the detailed design and construction supervision for its coastal protection works.
Services
The project
Beira City in Mozambique experiences frequent coastal and pluvial flooding during cyclones leaving more than 90% of the city and its surrounding areas damaged or destroyed. The city recently experienced major disasters as a result of cyclones, leading to devastating effects on the local communities, whose communication and access was cut off due to damaged roads and communication lines.
The project’s aim is to provide consultancy services for the detailed design and supervision of coastal protection construction works in Beira to safeguard the city from the elevated seawater levels and coastal flooding induced by cyclones.
Dar has undertaken the design and supervision works under two packages – one covering the design and supervision of coastal protection works while the other aims to develop an early warning system to further protect the communities of Beira.
Coastal Protection
To prepare the design for the coastal protection works of Beira, Dar is conducting pre-studies and detailed surveys including shoreline/topographic surveys, bathymetric surveys, geotechnical surveys, and sand sourcing studies. The preliminary design involves determining the scope and cost for mitigation measures, preparing a vegetation, nursery and landscape plan, and optimizing the design activities based on the result of feasibility studies.
The detailed design will follow, taking multiple approaches to ensure the comprehensive protection of the area. The first step involves social and environmental services to protect the communities and environment of the city and surrounding areas. The design will also target the infrastructure of the area through urban interventions and drainage works. And finally, Dar’s marine engineers will focus on rock revetment and seawall strengthening, sand dunes, clay dike, and buffer, mangroves re-vegetation, and dredging works.
Early Warning System
An Early Warning System (EWS) is a disaster management tool that helps detect, monitor and warn against the hazards of a tropical cyclone. Designing a new EWS involves multiple considerations to ensure that the new system is compatible with existing national and global EWS’s while also effectively addressing the specific flood and cyclone hazards in Beira. During the early stages of inception, the team reviews the status of the existing cyclone and flood EWS as well as EWS activities already undertaken by governmental departments, NGOs, and aid agencies and any policies, legislation and institutional mechanisms that must be considered. This is followed by a gap and needs assessment to identify potential designs that will comply and synergize with existing global and national systems. This involves meeting with stakeholders and holding consultation sessions to determine the best approaches and innovative measures for the new EWS. All reviews, studies and consultations are then incorporated into the design process, where Dar experts will design an EWS based on the essential elements identified to ensure an effective and compatible EWS tailored to the needs of Beira.