Activities on the NFRF Project:

Mr. Cody Danaher, PhD student at McGill University, in collaboration with Ms. Alana Norville and Mr. Muzzammil Mohabir from the Faculty of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Guyana, conducted a workshop on April 09, 2026, to build UG capacity on methods to analyze the resilience of Guyana’s coastal communities to flooding, and assess the effectiveness of nature-based solutions. The goal is to reduce the impacts of flooding on local communities in coastal Guyana, and to build the capacity of local stakeholders to manage and address the hydrological, and also the socio-economic, ecological and institutional dimensions of flood disasters. During the workshop, system dynamics modelling, an integrative approach to modelling and comparing solutions to major water resource management problems, was presented to the audience, followed by an opportunity for attendees to participate in some of the qualitative methods currently being implemented by Mr. Danaher in his ongoing fieldwork with local communities. This involved building a diagram of the causes, consequences and feedback mechanisms (causal-loop diagram) associated with a local problem. The completion of this training exercise marks a major milestone in the progress of the CFRF project, signaling the support and strong collaboration between the research team and local educational institutions who share a common goal: to help local communities adapt and face the uncertainties of changing hydrometeorological patterns and flooding in the coastal plains of Guyana.

Cody Danaher, PhD student at McGill and Dr. Liam Kirkpatrick from Imperial College, London spent 10 days in August 2025 in the Demerara-Mahaica region of Guyana to collect preliminary data regarding flood resilience in two focus study areas: the Neighbourhood Democratic Councils (NDC) of Cane Grove and Caledonia/Good-Success.

In collaboration with the Civil Defense Commission and Ms. Alana Norville from the University of Guyana, the researchers traveled to each NDC and met with local community representatives to collect data on the perceived causes, consequences and stakeholders impacted by flooding.

Two workshops were conducted where participants were asked to a) describe the level of impact felt across their NDC on maps prepared by the research team and b) identify stakeholders with interest in, influence over or that are impacted by flooding.

The data collected will help guide future research efforts aimed at designing and testing solutions – co-created with local community members – via models to be developed by the research team.