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.
I am a climate change and international development professional with 9 years experience managing international climate change projects in 18 countries in the Asia-Pacific. I worked for the Australian Government for 6 years in high-level policy and program roles and served as the Regional Program Manager of the Pacific-Australia Climate Change Science and Adaptation Planning (PACCSAP) Program based in Samoa during 2012-2014. I am skilled in project formulation, program management and policy analysis and specialise in climate risk management, climate resilient infrastructure design, coastal adaptation planning, national adaptation planning, policy-relevant communication, community-based adaptation and program evaluation. I thrive in multidisciplinary and multicultural team environments and have extensive experience applying integrated adaptation planning approaches in Pacific Island Countries.