Title

"Captain The Island'S Sinking!" - Climate Change And Tourism Speightstown, Barbados, West Indies

Keywords

Climate change; Heritage; Storm surge; Tourism

Abstract

Climate change for Barbados has several direct impacts, rising sea level, dying reef and sea grass communities leading to compromised coastal protection. Climate change results in more frequent and intense storm events. Combined with reduced reef protection, the impact of high magnitude events on coastal communities is devastating. In the Caribbean, the coast is a major tourist attraction and many urban centers are located there. This paper documents the like impact of climate change on the historic township of Speightstown, Barbados. Base maps were prepared which identified all the tourism, wholesale/retail, service, fisheries, heritage, transportation and residential features. A computer model generated 50, 100 and 150 year storm events. The likely impact was superimposed on the base map. Two scenarios are presented: Scenario 1. The impact of a high magnitude 50 year event (a temporary condition), the estimated total impact is US$31 million (US$19.8 million associated with the loss of tourism and heritage attractions). Under Scenario 2 sea level rise equating to the level of the 50 year event the area is totally lost (1,095 homes; 46 wholesale/retail businesses; 41 tourism and heritage establishments; 28 service businesses; and 60 fisheries operations). Speightstown as we know it would cease to exist.

Publication Date

12-1-2009

Publication Title

WMSCI 2009 - The 13th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics, Jointly with the 15th International Conference on Information Systems Analysis and Synthesis, ISAS 2009 - Proc.

Volume

3

Number of Pages

203-208

Document Type

Article; Proceedings Paper

Personal Identifier

scopus

Socpus ID

84867255293 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/84867255293

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