James Lewis, Director of Intercoastal Consulting, is a certified practicing civil engineer with over 15 years of experience specialising in coastal engineering throughout Australasia and across the Pacific. He has a broad knowledge of coastal protection design, integrated coastal management and surf amenity. James’s skills extend outside the office where he has led large-scale metocean deployments, analysing the data captured in the field to calibrate numerical models used to inform coastal design.
He has focussed the last 10 years of his career on working in Small Island Developing States (SIDs) in climate change adaptation, concerned primarily with developing climate-resilient coastal protection. James aspires to see the design phase through to implementation; having supported procurement, and contracting and undertaken construction supervision on large projects in remote locations. He aims to provide value and support through the complete project lifecycle including the social, financial and institutional aspects of these projects, endeavoring to understand the administrative, governmental and funding mechanisms specific to each country and community and their relation to the delivery of a successful project.
Using his knowledge of coastal engineering, the ocean and the environment, James’ primary endeavor is to assist coastal communities most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
Key skills: providing strategic, targeted knowledge network, evaluation and technical services to international environmental and development programs and institutional capacities. Thematic interests and work experience: project design, implementation and results based monitoring: child rights, disability mainstreaming in UN funds and programs, inclusive education sector planning, biodiversity strategic planning, disaster risk reduction , climate change and resilience, natural resources and protected area management, ecosystem services and environmental science. Policy and bottleneck analysis and implementation problem resolution including work in environment sectors, poverty alleviation and education, improved service delivery and transparent government initiatives. Advocacy interests focusing on one UN programming, education for sustainable development, education systems and planning, climate change adaptation, emergencies, disaster risk reduction and resilience. Communication: training and education experience, including organizing and leading workshops. Research: data analysis, writing/editing materials for a wide variety of audiences and preparing content for websites.