Mauritius: Early warning system for storm surge set up before next cyclonic season

An Early Warning System for incoming storm surge, swells and tsunamis will be set up before the next cyclonic season which will start from 15 November 2015. The project will be financed by the Global Environment Fund jointly with the UNDP.

This is the outcome of a meeting held yesterday between the Minister of Environment, Sustainable Development, Disaster and Beach Management, Mr Raj Dayal, and two experts Dr. Deepak Vatvani and Dr. Jodo R. de Lima Rego from Dutch company Stichting Deltares. Dr. Vatvani is a senior adviser on coastal flooding, marine and coastal system, and environmental hydrodynamics; while Dr. de Lima Rego is a researcher and adviser of the Dutch company.

Minister Dayal expressed the wish for the Dutch government to be a stakeholder as part of the international support from which Mauritius benefits with regard to the fight against coastal erosion. Around one quarter of the population of Mauritius resides on the coasts of the island, he stated.

‘Mauritius and the Netherlands share strong ties. Moreover our island bears the name of the Prince of Orange, Maurice de Nassau, and was formerly a Dutch territory’, added the Minister.

It is recalled that a brainstorming will take place during a National Workshop being organised on 22 January 2015 at Intercontinental Resort, Balaclava, in the context of the implementation of an Early Warning System for incoming storm surge in the Republic of Mauritius.

The Ministry of Environment, Sustainable Development, Disaster and Beach Management, is also working with the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in its efforts to counter landslide risks and soil instability in certain regions in Mauritius and in Rodrigues.

As it is, four regions in Mauritius, namely - Chitrakoot, Quatre Soeurs, Vallée Pitot and La Butte - identified as high landslide risk areas, have been equipped with monitoring devices, following various surveys and surveillances conducted by the JICA expert team in the context of the Landslide Management Project of the Ministry of Public Infrastructure and Land Transport.