August 2014


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Off to Villa Bay

In March this year, nine students from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering went off to Villa Bay in St Vincent for the annual Coastal Metrics field trip. Villa Bay was selected because it will form part of the proposed South Coast Marine Park (SCMP) identified by the National Parks, Rivers and Beaches Authority (NPRBA) as one of the of four new marine parks planned for the mainland of St. Vincent.

In addition, there are no hydrographic and oceanographic data available for the proposed SCMP.Figure 1shows Villa Bay, which is sheltered by offshore islands in the south and a coral reef in the east. However due to the absence of an airport in the 1960s, a channel was cut through the reef to allow seaplanes to land. The opening of this channel has resulted in strong currents entering the bay and removing sediments from the beach. Over the years, the beach has become very narrow: a mere 8m. The loss of beach sediments through erosion has caused hoteliers to construct seawalls along the coast (Figure 1).

On the first day of the field trip, the group attended a meeting with the Permanent Secretary and the Chief Engineer of the Ministry of Transport, Works, Urban Development and Local Government. They explained the coastal issues facing the island one of which was the heavy rains which caused severe damage to communities in December 2013. In addition there was a swell event during that period which impacted the east coast of the island. As such, the group undertook a tour of the east coast of St Vincent to view erosion sites and coastal protection structures.

For three days, the students collected information for their coursework project. The purpose of the data collection exercise was to train the students to use equipment to collect data on the bathymetry, oceanography (tide, waves and water circulation), environmental water quality, beach and sediment dynamics of the marine and coastal areas of Villa Bay. At the end they presented the preliminary findings to staff at government ministries.

(By Charmaine O’Brien-Delpesh, Lecturer, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering)