• Military Menu                       

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Industry
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• WMD
• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

Tuvalu - Climate Change

Tuvalu has become emblematic of the plight faced by low-lying islands from projected sea level rise over the coming century. Unlike Plato’s Atlantis, the threat to small islands is easily predictable, if not preventable. The islands will no disappear in “a single day and night of misfortune” as Plato said of Atlantis’ fate. In the near term, the fate of small islands will present a series of “mini crises” about how and where to relocate peoples and societies, and who retains control of the resources they once owned. Many of the most vulnerable islands are on the equator, leading to a naturally higher sea level to begin with. In Tuvalu, 100% of the population lives less than 16 feet above sea level.

Tuvalu is a South Pacific Ocean nation consisting of nine atolls (Funafuti, Nanumea, Nanumaga, Niutao, Vaitupu, Nukufetau, Nui, Nukulaelae and Niulakita) and is one of the countries impacted the most by climate change. Tuvalu is small – its islands spread over a vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean comprise only 26 square kilometers (10 square miles). Sea-level rise and climatic change threaten the existence of atoll nations. Inundation and erosion are expected to render islands uninhabitable over the next century, forcing human migration.

Due to scarcities of fertile farmland and fresh water, agricultural activities are limited in Tuvalu. Inhabitants often resort to imported produce. Limited agricultural activities, nutrition strategies, and financing have culminated in an overwhelming obesity rate of 60% in adult women and 52% in adult men, much higher than the South Pacific regional average of 327% and 31% for women and men, respectively. Although the prevalence of obesity is primarily a result of individual behaviours, these structural factors, including the consumption of high-calorie imported food, could prompt unhealthy food choices and undesirable health outcomes.

Expansion of islands on reef surfaces indicates a net addition of sediment. Implications of increased sediment volumes are profound as they suggest positive sediment generation balances for these islands and maintenance of an active linkage between the reef sediment production regime and transfer to islands, which is critical for ongoing physical resilience of islands. On most windward reef sites such linkages are modulated by storm-driven wave deposition of new materials and subsequent reef recovery, whereas at leeward locations, where sand islands may prevail, supply is likely to be characterised by a more consistent incremental addition of sediments from reef flat surfaces.

Documented changes in islands throughout Tuvalu are considered to be driven by environmental rather than anthropogenic processes. In particular, wave and sediment supply processes provide the most compelling explanation for the physical changes documented in islands, most notably the expansion of the majority of islands.

In the low-lying Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, sea level rise is taking a toll. One of Tuvalu’s uninhabited islands disappeared under the waves in 1997. And now, rising seas frequently flood the airport runway in the capital, Funafuti. New houses must be built on stilts.

One third of sea level rise comes from thermal expansion, which occurs as warming ocean water expands slightly. The remaining rise comes from melting land ice. It is tempting to blame the vast Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, as they contain 99 percent of all land ice on Earth. Yet they currently only contribute a third of sea level rise. The remaining third comes from mountain glaciers, such as those in Alaska, the Andes, and the Himalaya, which combined contain a mere 1 percent of land ice.

Sea-level rise will exacerbate the hazards posed by climate change (storms, waves, temperatures, precipitation, etc.) to infrastructure, freshwater supplies, agriculture, and habitats for threatened and endangered species, Tuvalu frequently experiences droughts, especially during meteorological conditions prevalent in La Nina years, but natural declines in rainfall are now increasing in frequency and length due to the impacts of climate change in the Pacific. The ongoing droughts, which began in 2022, is the worst in recent memory, severely straining already limited water resources. Tuvalu declared a State of Public Emergency due to drought in November 2022. The situation is especially acute on the outer islands, which have fewer resources and have received less donor attention than the main population center Funafuti in Tuvalu.

Without building up and extending land that averages an arm’s length above the high-tide, half of Funafuti will be inundated by tidal waters by 2050 and 95% by the end of this century, based on one-meter of sea-level rise projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Funafuti at its widest is about 400 meters (1,312 feet), a parcel of land that packs together the airport runway, government buildings and infrastructure and homes. Between the two to three international flights a week, the runway is a lively town square where people flock to socialize or play football and volleyball in the evenings. At one of the atoll’s narrowest slivers, mere meters, the view takes in ocean waves crashing on one side of the road while lagoon waters lap placidly on the other.

An Australian marine engineering company, Hall Pacific, is creating more than seven hectares of new land along a 780-meter (2,560-feet) stretch of lagoon waterfront. At roughly 4% of the existing area of Funafuti’s largest island, it’s a significant addition to the atoll that would also bolster the ability to withstand king tides and tropical cyclones. The cost, including coastal protection works for two outer islands Nanumaga and Nanumea to stop them being swamped by storm waves, is about U.S. $30 million.

The project has been several years in the making and is only the first steps in a much larger vision. Unveiled in November 2022 by Tuvalu’s government and the U.N. Development Programme, the decades-long plan to survive higher sea levels envisages more than doubling the size of Tuvalu’s most populated island and linking it to two smaller islets by reclaiming 3.6 square kilometers (1.4 square miles) from the lagoon.

The plan proposes relocating residents and infrastructure to the reclaimed area and later possibly raising the level of the original island before revegetating it. The airport would be moved to a finger of land at one end of the enlarged islet and also serve as a water catchment for the thirsty islands that depend on rainfall for their water.