Sea level rise and human migration
Wishful sinking?
Reasons for changes in the environment have recently become an area of intense research. To date, however, it is difficult for the scientific community to achieve consensus in this regard. The answer to the question of to what extent environmental changes are the result of human activity is now a cornerstone of the dispute. According to currently dominant views, human activity is a major contributor to the imbalance of global habitats. The anthropogenic causes of environmental changes include, inter alia, the impact of greenhouse gases and particulate matter (so-called atmospheric aerosols).
One serious threat behind current environmentally caused displacement includes a general rise in sea levels, caused by glacial melting. According to some researchers, ocean levels will increase over the next hundred years by more than 1 m. Rising water levels currently not represent a significant source of environmentally induced displacement, but in subsequent years may firmly gain strength. Areas below 10 meters above sea level constitute only two percent of the globe; however, as much as 10 percent of the world's population resides there. The first incidence of mass migration caused by a rise in sea level was the flooding in 1995 of Bangladesh's Bhola Island. As a result, half of the island is no longer fit to live on, and more than half a million people lost shelters. A similar problem can reach the inhabitansts of Carteret Islands, an atoll belonging to Papua New Guinea. Rising sea level may permanently displace at least 10 thousand residents of the archipelago. Can we prevent this kind of problems? In the case of Nigeria alone, a one-metre rise in ocean level could force more than 3.7 million people to migrate. (In the case of a two-metre rise, that figure could increase to 10 million.) Equally important related problems include the issues of changing climate zones, ocean currents, and monsoon activity, as well as the occurrence of tornadoes. Significant changes in the summer monsoon period affect the economic situation of many Asian countries.
Rising ocean levels are a major problem threatening the existence of some of the archipelagic states and many coastal areas of other countries. Particularly vulnerable to this process at present are the countries of the South Pacific and Oceania: Tuvalu, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Palau, Papua and New Guinea, Nauru, Vanuatu (Tegua island) and the Republic of Maldives. In the past five years, nearly a third of Tuvalu Island's small population of 11 thousand have emigrated. A rise in sea levels of but one centimetre per year would cause a complete flooding of that country in less than fifty years. At the moment, especially high risks associated with the rise of the oceans are having a particular impact on the two archipelagic states of Western Polynesia: Tuvalu and Kiribati. According to UN forecasts, they may be completely inundated by the rising waters of the Pacific by 2050. (Since 1993, global sea levels have been rising at a rate of about 3.26 mm. per year.) Over the past sixty years, the level of the Pacific surrounding western Polynesia has increased by more than 12 centimetres. On the basis of agreements signed by the authorities of Tuvalu, all the inhabitants of the island, in the event of an imminent threat to its existence, will be evacuated to the territory of New Zealand. According to Lilian Yamamoto of Kanagawa Uniersity the biggest challenge is such cases “is to preserve their nationality without a territory". The possibility of resettlement of the Fiji and Kioa islands populations or purchase of land in Australia is also under consideration. The threat of total flooding is just as pertinent to the islands of Maldives, famous mainly for their developed tourism.
The situation of the Maldives archipelago population
The Maldives are an archipelagic island state in the Indian Ocean. The Maldives consist of nearly 1,200 islands, embedded in 26 reef atolls. The country is inhabited by almost 400,000 people, and is also visited by more than 300,000 tourists a year. The biggest problem facing this mainly tourism-based country is now the rising ocean level due to climate change.
The first alarming predictions about the future of the archipelago appeared in the mid-eighties of the last century. According to experts, sea level will rise by 0.8 to 2 meters by 2100. This means a total inundation of more than 80 percent of the archipelago islands. These predictions can be considered highly probable at the moment. Measurements made in the Maldives showed that the average increase in sea level is 8 millimetres per year. As a result of rising water level in recent years, the residents of over 30 islands were already evacuated. The weight of the problem faced by the Maldives became a global issue in the wake of the devastation of a large part of the country by the December 2004 tsunami. The Asian tsunami of December 26, 2004 killed 82 people, displaced more than 12,000 and caused extensive damage to the country's most important tourism industry. It was then decided to surround the capital island with a concrete dam. The cost of this project, estimated at more than $60 million, was entirely covered by the Japanese government. Inter-state negotiations are also underway regarding the future of the country's population. Up for discussion is whether to temporarily evacuate or completely relocate the population to one of the less vulnerable countries in the region or to Australia. If the previously observed trends do not change, the whole area of the state will disappear beneath the ocean surface in 150-200 years. Therefore, it is necessary to take action to prevent this process (which will hopefully be made possible by the development of new construction technologies). In 2007, UNDP launched a special expert program, monitoring the changes in the ocean in the region. The situation of the archipelago was also discussed in 2009 at the World Climate Conference in Copenhagen.
The future of Maldives, remaining only in the realm of speculation, shows the increasing correlation between environmental changes and many spheres of social life. Environmental problems already constitute one of the main issues in the economic forums, multilateral meetings, and activities of international organisations. However, many researchers suggests that Maledives sea level is not rising. According to Nils-Axel Mörner from Stockholm University there is evidence of sea level fall in the last 30 years in that Indian Ocean area.