The role and value of natural capital and development of indicators for use in disaster preparedness in the UK's Overseas Territories of the British Virgin Islands

The British Virgin Islands are highly dependent upon the natural environment for their economic and social wellbeing.

They are also reliant on limited manmade assets.

In the Caribbean in particular, these manmade capital assets, and human life, are vulnerable to both natural and manmade disasters.

The natural environment is itself susceptible to damage from human activities - resulting in loss of value to the economy and reducing its ability to protect manmade assets and human well-being.

The 2016 Conflict, Stability & Security Fund (CSSF) funded programme of work, 'Enhancing economic security through environmental resilience' in the UK Overseas Territories (OTs) (Caribbean Territories of Anguilla, British Virgin Islands, Montserrat and Turks and Caicos Islands and the South Atlantic Territories of Falkland Islands, St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha) aimed to improve the long-term economic planning to support growth and development.

Embedding the role of the natural environment in economic and spatial planning through existing or new policies or legislation is one element, with the objective to protect and enhance the value of the OTs vital natural environment.

The suite of projects mapped and valued the natural assets by integrating satellite data, Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and economic assessments of the priority environmental goods and services (derived from natural capital).

In the Caribbean, a GIS based model was developed to assess the vulnerability to storm surge and flooding events and their impacts on infrastructure and human life.

This CSSF funded project aims to support BVI in developing plans, policies and procedures to deal with natural disasters by enhancing their ability to prepare for / recover from the impact of storm events.

Work will also contribute to the UK Government's new hurricane preparedness plans for the British Overseas Territories in the Caribbean .

Building upon the work to date, this project will assess the role and economic value of the whole of BVI's natural capital in protection of manmade capital - to assess the vulnerability (susceptibility) of manmade capital to natural hazards such as (but not limited to) storm surge, in the coastal zone and landslip or flash flooding in the terrestrial environment; and develop a framework of indicators, incorporated into the national GIS, to monitor change over time to support disaster resilience.

This contract is associated with mapping the value of natural capital assets across the whole island and the development of environmental and natural capital indicators for use in national reporting and disaster preparedness.

The study does not intend to cover the wide variety of BVI's ecosystems and their associated services but focus on those associated with enhancing disaster resilience in BVI.

The natural capital assessment will also focus on supporting the current fiscal planning instruments and the proposed Environment Bill