Will it be Paradise Lost?

What comes to mind when you think of the Maldives? You might be thinking an exotic holiday destination? Tropical islands, beautiful coral reefs, and long white sandy beaches. Hotels on stilts stretching out into the Indian Ocean? Paradise? Or even those islands which constantly crop up in the news as hotspots feeling the effects of climate change?

Figure 1. Paradise in the Maldives?

The problem is that the Republic of the Maldives, as it is formally known, is the flattest country on Earth. Made up of 1,192 islands and home to a population of over 328,000, the Maldives and its people are extremely vulnerable to changes in sea level. For them, the prospect that the majority of their land surface could be underwater by the end of the century is very real (Woodworth 2005). While no point exceeds 3 metres elevation, much of the land surface (80%) lies below 1 metre above sea level.

Of the 1,1192 islands, 358 are inhabited, yet much of the population live close to the capital Malé located on the North Malé Atoll. In fact, about one-third of residents live there making it an excessively densely populated island (NAPA 2007). As alluded to above, tourism plays a major role in the local economy with over 600,000 tourist visits per year but this brings with it its own burdens on local communities (Tol 2007).

Sea level rise threatens homes, businesses and infrastructure that are forced to locate on the coast. As you know, sea levels are rising and it is on islands like these that miniscule changes can have major effects in the form of land inundation. For example, over 90 of the inhabited islands experience annual flooding (NAPA 2007). Another issue is freshwater resources which are scarce due to the shallow groundwater aquifers that are themselves at risk of seawater inundation with increased extraction. The government provides freshwater to 87% of the population through rainwater collection but during the dry season, and for non-drinking purposes, water is still required (UNEP 2005).

Figure 2. Reality many increasingly face

Scientists have suggested that 77% of the land would be lost by 2100 if mid-level estimates of sea level rise, 0.5 metres, are realised (Woodworth 2005). If this was exceeded and the country experienced a 1 metre rise it would have almost disappeared underwater by 2085! Serious measures have to be taken. Measures which the Maldive government are taking as their primary concern in addition to efforts to highlight the threat climate change poses in order for global community action. These attempts of mitigation and adaption will be examined next time.

References

NAPA (2007) ‘National adaptation programme of action’, Ministry of Environment, Energy and Water: Republic of Maldives.

Tol, R.S.J. (2007) ‘The double trade-off between adaptation and mitigation for sea level rise: an application of FUND’, Mitigation and Adaptation
Strategies for Global Change, 12, 741–53.

UNEP (2005) ‘Maldives post–tsunami environmental assessment’, UN Environmental Programme, Nairobi, Kenya.

Woodworth, P.L. (2005) ‘Have there been large recent sea level changes in the Maldive Islands?’, Global and Planetary Change, 49, 1-18.