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Climate change migration from
low-lying small island communities
David King, Director of the Centre for Disaster Studies, and Scott Smithers,
Associate Professor in the School of Earth & Environmental Sciences, James Cook University
C
limate change research has recorded increases in
surface temperatures and evidence of sea-level rise.
1
While there is great debate about climate change
projections, problems of sea level inundation have already
been experienced in low-lying small islands in the Indian and
Pacific oceans. Sea flooding in these communities has initially
occurred as storm surges from hurricanes, cyclones and
distant storms accompanied by high tides, producing episodes
of intense inundation and erosion. It has taken the momen-
tum of evidence during this decade to move governments and
institutions to acknowledge the need for adaptive action,
although much of the human population probably remains
largely unaware. Making people aware of the changing envi-
ronment and climate requires a number of complex processes.
As F. Duerden comments: “Personal experience takes place in
a limited timeframe, making it difficult to separate long-term
change from aberrations.”
2
Those remote and rural communities that are depend-
ant on local resources face adaptation, which may make
them especially vulnerable. Handmer et al
3
make the
point that globally, adaptation is effective, but that at
the local level vulnerability is extremely unequal. Some
populations simply will not survive in their current
locations. This introduces migration as an adaptive
strategy – certainly not part of emergency manage-
ment thinking, which is focused on relatively static
local communities. Low-lying islands and coastal
areas, particularly atoll groups in the Indian and Pacific
oceans, are the first environments to face the threat of
inundation from rising sea levels. Some communities
already face the prospect of migration away from their
homelands. These are either spontaneous individual or
household decisions, or planned relocations by commu-
nities or government institutions.
T
he
I
mpacts
and
I
mplications
of
C
limate
C
hange
and
V
ariability
High tides and storms cause flooding at Takuu in the Mortlock Islands, Papua New Guinea, December 2008
Image: Scott Smithers