Coast Day, ClimVar & DIVA in Tunisia

From June 2 to 6, a PAP/RAC representative participated in a number of meetings and workshops organised in Tunis, Tunisia, in the frame of the “Integration of climatic variability and change into national strategies to implement the ICZM Protocol in the Mediterranean” project (ClimVar & ICZM).

On Monday June 2, PAP/RAC discussed its co-operation with APAL on the organisation of the central regional celebration of the Coast Day 2014 to be hosted by Tunisia.

A 3-day training was organised at the Hotel le Palace in Gammarth, Tunisia, with 15 participants, climate engineers from Tunisia and Morocco and representatives of the organising institutions (UNEP-MAP, BP/RAC, PAP/RAC and GWP-Med). On the first day the participants learned how to install, configure and deploy various open-source technologies for publishing and sharing spatial data. The second day was about better understanding of spatial data visualisation, analysis, downloading in an open-source environment. UNEP-Grid experts also presented the MedCIP platform for Climate Change being developed within the project. On the 3rd day of the training a presentation was made on coastal morpho-dynamics and the participants were trained on the use of a friendly integrated software toolbox, to provide estimates on beach retreat/erosion under sea-level rise. PAP/RAC presented experiences relevant to the implementation of the Article 8 of the ICZM Protocol, particularly on the work done to provide assistance to the Mediterranean countries to implement the coastal set-back.

In the frame of the component 2 of the ClimVar project, on June 6 a meeting was organised by PAP/RAC in close co-operation with APAL to present and discuss the preliminary results to the implementation of the DIVA model in Tunisia. Twenty participants, representing national organisations, independent Tunisian experts and UNEP-MAP, Plan Bleu, GWP-Med and PAP/RAC representatives followed the presentation of the project by UNEP-MAP and PAP/RAC presentation on its activities within the ClimVar project in Croatia. These were followed by a technical presentation by the Global Climate Forum on the DIVA model, the concept behind the model and its applications so far, as well as information on the downscaling work done to run the model at the national level in Croatia and the preliminary results for the Tunisian coasts. In the ensuing lively discussion the Tunisian experts made a number of comments and showed great interest and support.