Deploying novel remote sensing solutions to increase the efficiency of dredging operations and coastal management at the port of Beira, Mozambique

有强有力的证据表明气候变化--导致海平面、潮差和极端事件的增加，增加了沿海人口的风险。由于缺乏支持规划和缓解的监测系统，莫桑比克等地势低洼的发展中国家特别容易受到此类事件的影响。2019年3月热带气旋艾达的到来证明了这一点，它造成了广泛的破坏，特别是在莫桑比克第二大国际海港贝拉周围地区。该项目将评估大幅提高莫桑比克贝拉港维护疏浚效率的潜力，从而减少与频繁维护疏浚相关的成本和碳排放。当地社区将受益于洪水风险和海岸侵蚀管理的改善。莫桑比克目前只有四个连续的长期验潮仪，分别位于马普托、伊尼扬巴内、贝拉和奔巴。这些数据被用来为港务局、当地社区和渔业提供潮汐预报。然而，莫桑比克拥有广阔的海岸线，缺乏这四个地点以外的信息，这给社区、基础设施和商业带来了安全问题。海平面和潮汐信息在有计划扩建和开发港口的地方特别需要，例如北部发展走廊铁路连接马拉维的海港码头纳卡拉。该项目的愿景是通过提供一个独特的广域、近乎实时的遥感数据集，包括近岸水深测量，改变疏浚常规的范例，表层水流和波浪统计将提供一个沙箱，水文局可以在其中更好地设计和建模独特的疏浚方法，这些方法可以与自然过程合作，创建更多自给自足的优化泥沙输送路径。该项目中提议开发的解决方案不仅在莫桑比克的贝拉和其他港口，而且在全球许多其他港口都具有广泛的采用潜力

There is strong evidence of Climate Change--induced increases in sea level, tidal range and extreme events, elevating the risk to coastal populations. Low-lying developing nations, such as Mozambique are particularly vulnerable to such events, due to a lack of monitoring systems to support planning and mitigation. This was exemplified by the arrival of Tropical Cyclone Idai in March 2019, which caused widespread devastation, particularly in the region surrounding Beira -- Mozambique's second largest international sea port.This project will assess the potential for dramatically increasing the efficiency of maintenance dredging at the port of Beira in Mozambique and thereby reducing costs and carbon emissions associated with frequent maintenance dredging. The local community will benefit from improved flood risk and coastal erosion management.Mozambique currently only has four continuous, long-term tide gauges, at Maputo, Inhambane, Beira and Pemba. These are used to produce tidal predictions for port authorities, local communities and the fishing industry. However, Mozambique has an extensive coastline and the dearth of information outside these four locations, presents safety issues for communities, infrastructure and commerce. Sea level and tidal information is particularly in demand where there are plans to extend and develop ports, such as Nacala, the sea terminal for the Northern Development Corridor rail link to Malawi.The vision of the project is to change the paradigm of the dredging routine by providing a unique wide-area, near realtime, remotely sensed dataset comprising nearshore bathymetry, surface currents and wave statistics that will provide a sandbox in which the hydrographic office can better design and model unique dredging approaches that can work with the natural processes to create more self-sustaining optimised sediment transport pathways.The solution proposed to be developed in the project has wide potential for adoption at not just Beira and other ports in Mozambique, but to many other ports globally