Climate Change and Small Island Developing States

Abstract

Despite their heterogeneity, small island developing states (SIDS) are recognized as being particularly at risk to climate change, and, as they share numerous common traits, the United Nations recognizes them as a special group. SIDS have been quite vocal in calling attention to the challenges they face from climate change and advocating for greater international ambition to limit global warming. Here, we unpack factors that are helpful in understanding the relationship between climate change and SIDS through a review of studies that span disciplines and methodologies. We assess patterns of hazards, exposure, and vulnerability; impacts and risks; awareness and knowledge; adaptation planning and implementation; mitigation; loss and damage; and climate justice to provide an overarching review of literature on climate change and SIDS. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Environment and Resources, Volume 45 is October 19, 2020. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.

Contribution of an Integrated Maritime Policy to the Dialogue of Civilisations: The Asia-Pacific Case

“…The global ocean makes an essential contribution as a planetary reservoir for heat, water, and CO 2 and as a source of vital resources for food security and for sustaining economic prosperity. In addition, rising sea levels and relative challenges constituted a threat to the world's coastal areas, the existence of some small islands and the well-being of their populations [147][148][149]. The Asia-Pacific region has had its share of such concerns.…”

“…The Asia-Pacific region has had its share of such concerns. Among them are many instances of severe erosion due to sea level rise, and several low-lying Pacific Islands in Micronesia and Solomon Islands have already been lost [148]. National adaptation planning for sea level rise was developed in many countries with a coastline but regional coordination and common assessment standards in this issue have to date proved difficult to achieve [147,149].…”

Integrated Water Resource Management: Rethinking the Contribution of Rainwater Harvesting

“…Finally, using Figure 1, the way the bright future of RWH can be shaped through a number of measures as follows: (i) maximize RWH everywhere, such as through large storage devices (measure 1), (ii) maximize groundwater recharge everywhere such as through the construction of large infiltration systems (measure 2), (iii) minimize runoff volume (measure 3), and (iv) channel harvested rainwater to point of use, including water distribution tanks (measure 4) [23,24]. Measures 1 and 2 already reduce runoff, but stormwater ponds are needed even where infiltration is impossible.…”

“…The objective of this communication is to demonstrate that despite the broad application of RWH worldwide, rainwater is still an underestimated and thus under exploited "help from above" [18,23,24] in integrated water management. RWH is acknowledged as an option for decentralized water provision, but debates exist about its benefits and costs [25,26].…”

Effects of aquifer geometry on seawater intrusion in annulus segment island aquifers

“…Islands are extensively distributed in global oceans and are considered as vulnerable places due to sea-level rise and human population growth. According to a recent estimate, there are approximately 65 million people living in oceanic islands, where fresh groundwater may be the only source of freshwater (Thomas et al, 2020). Fresh groundwater stored on oceanic islands is mainly recharged from precipitation and its availability can be impacted by a variety of factors, including island topography, rainfall patterns, tides, episodic storms and human activities (White & Falkland, 2010;Storlazzi et al, 2018).…”