Vulnerability to disaster in the Maldives : the perception of the Maamigili and Fenfushi Island communities (original) (raw)
Hazard, Resilience and Development: The Case of Two Maldivian Islands
2021
Due to their geophysical structure, the Maldives face various natural hazards, such as coastal erosion, rising water levels, tsunamis and other climate-related disasters. In 2004, the country was affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami, with almost 12,000 displaced persons and a further 8,500 relocated inhabitants. In the context of the country’s efforts to achieve sustainable development and face climate change, disaster risk reduction and resilience capacity are key issues. The Government is working hard to implement the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risks Reduction 2015-2030, linked to Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement. The paper considers the cases of two islands in Dhaalu Atoll – Meedhoo and Rin’budhoo – both affected by the tsunami, where social and economic resilience produced two different models of development. The tsunami hit Meedhoo hard. The island economy depends on fishing and the main threats are its small size and soil erosion. Thus, in 2006 a large ...
Living on the sinking islands. Social aspects of climate change on example of Maldives
The complex character of the effects of climate change on human communities requires extensive nterdisciplinary research, including more recognition of its social and cultural aspects. This study provides an example of this kind of research, using the example of a small island country in the Indian Ocean, Maldives. Because of its exceptional physical vulnerability to sea-level rise as a consequence of global warming, as well as its unique coral landscape, which will soon be lost, Maldives is known to the international audience as a ‘sinking paradise’. This study explores the attitudes towards the threat of sea-level rise that have been adopted by the country’s inhabitants and the cultural patterns that influence them. An in-depth case study, based on qualitative interviews, participant observation, and analysis of previously existing resources during nearly six months of fieldwork, revealed denial and disinterest on the part of Maldivians in regard to the upcoming natural disaster predicted by climatologists for their homeland. This would seem to be controversial, if one compares the reaction of Maldivians with that of certain other communities living in areas especially exposed to dangers connected with climate change. The cultural theory of risk developed by Mary Douglas and Aaron Wildavsky proved constructive in explaining this state of affairs. The theory assumes that awareness of all potential dangers is beyond human capacity; thus societies select and rank those risks which appear most important, while ignoring others. Prioritising dangers serves as a social strategy to enable day-to-day functioning. From the perspective of the Maldivians, the main issue is the introduction of democracy in recent years, which has triggered internal conflicts as well as the rise of violence, gang activity and drug use among the younger generation. Sea-level rise, on the other hand, is not considered a real danger by Maldivians. They regard it as doubtful, and even if it is a real danger, they trust in God’s will concerning their future. In addition, citizens of Maldives have always been aware of and accustomed to the changeable nature of their islands, and are also used to internal migration. A modified version of the grid-group model proposed by Mary Douglas enables the identification of the underlying rules of Maldivian society, in turn making it possible to understand why the ranking of the risks takes the form it does. According to my research findings, one of the main factors regulating cultural patterns in Maldives is reluctance to accept change ‒ change which has appeared inevitable since Maldives began to participate in world affairs following the introduction of tourism in the 1970s. To summarise, the example of Maldives proves the importance of examining various cultural environments in areas especially exposed to the negative effects of climate change. This approach not only promotes the development of a new trend in the study of the relationship between culture and nature, but suggests the application of risk management policies according to the specific cultural context of the threatened area in question.
What is shaping vulnerability to climate change? The case of Laamu Atoll, Maldives
Island Studies Journal, 2018
As climate change accelerates, it brings with it numerous challenges to society and the natural world. Concepts such as vulnerability have emerged as a way of trying to understand people's risk, despite there being a range of variables that can influence vulnerability and its temporal and spatial dimensions. Drawing from the well-known conceptualisation of vulnerability as a function of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, this paper seeks to understand what variables are influencing and shaping vulnerability in Laamu Atoll, the Maldives, and produce a base of knowledge for future vulnerability reduction initiatives. Household questionnaires (n=412) were used on Laamu Atoll to ascertain locals' perceptions of vulnerability based on livelihood resources, financial security, and climate-change experiences. Results show that peripherality, as a notion that describes the disparities between 'core' and 'peripheral' islands, is a key factor shaping vulnerability variables on Laamu Atoll. This has prompted an overarching recommendation for peripherality to be considered as a key dimension of vulnerability to climate change and an important consideration for existing and future human development and climate change policy and practice in Small Island Developing States.
The societal costs of disasters around the world are continuing to increase and Pacific Island countries are considered some of the most vulnerable. This is primarily due to a combination of high hazard exposure coupled with a range of social, economic, physical, and political vul-nerabilities. This article contributes to the growing body of work that aims to understand the causal factors of disaster vulnerability, but with a specific focus on small island developing states. The article first develops a framework for understanding disaster vulnerability, drawing on extensive literature and the well-established Methods for the Improvement of Vulnerability in Europe (MOVE) framework, and second, applies this adapted framework using empirically-derived data from fieldwork on Emae Island, Vanuatu to provide a working understanding of the causal elements of disaster vulnerability. Drawn from a significant body of scholarship at the time, the MOVE framework was primarily developed as a heuristic tool in which disaster vulnerability is considered to be a function of exposure, susceptibility (socially, economically, physically , culturally, environmentally, institutionally), and a lack of resilience. We posit that this adapted framework for small islands should also include historical susceptibility, and we prefer livelihood resilience (as capabilities, social capital, knowledge, participation, and human rights) over lack of resilience. We maintain that understanding disaster vulnerability holistically, which is inclusive of both strengths and drawbacks, is crucial to ensure that limited resources can target the causal factors that produce vulnerability and help safeguard and improve livelihoods in both the short and long term.
Mainstreaming disaster risk reduction into community development in the Windward Islands
2013
The Windward Islands are vulnerable to a number of natural hazards. This thesis examines the possibilities for Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) in the Windward Islands. The Windward Islands offer a special case of “Island Vulnerability”. Island vulnerability is essentially defined as an increased probability in disaster events against what would be expected if vulnerability were to be measured against international levels of poverty, defined as Gross National Product per capita. There are three reasons for this namely the topography of islands, the site characteristics and the socio-economic setting. The topography is one where islands, largely of volcanic or coral origins, face multi-hazard experience particularly from flooding and storm surge. The site issue is that islands usually have a high ratio of coastline to land mass implying a relatively higher exposure to extreme events. The socio-economic conditions are peculiar to island including isolation, mono-agriculture and mono-indu...
Capacities in Facing Natural Hazards: A Small Island Perspective
International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2014
Isolated communities on small islands are often characterized as vulnerable and marginalized. We studied the recent history of Laingpatehi, a village on Ruang Island off the north coast of Sulawesi, Indonesia to show that the marginalization-vulnerability nexus can be offset by capacity and social cohesion to enable sustainable livelihoods. The island has been impacted by volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and competition for marine resources from mainland-based fishermen. The community has shown a remarkable ability to cope and prosper in the face of a series of external hazards. We used a sustainable livelihoods approach to identify the assets that enabled the villagers to cope. Strong social cohesion was central to the ability to organize the community and confront hazards. A diversified livelihood strategy drawing on the small island environment and its coastal and marine resources, income generating activities in a distant satellite village, and significant remittances from employment in other parts of Indonesia underpinned people's capacities to face hazards. Government assistance played a supporting role. The case of Laingpatehi demonstrates how remoteness, rather than being a source of vulnerability, can provide access to existing resources and facilitate innovation. Disaster risk reduction strategies should focus more on reinforcing these existing capacities to deal with hazards and less on physical protection and postdisaster responses.
Perceptions of climate change risks and resilient island planning in the Maldives
This article explores the drivers, benefits, and challenges facing climate change adaptation in the Maldives. It specifically investigates the “Integrating Climate Change Risks into Resilient Island Planning in the Maldives” Program, or ICCR, a four-year $9.3 million adaptation project being funded by the Least Developed Countries Fund, Maldivian Government and the United Nations Development Program, and nationally executed by the Ministry of Housing, Transport and Environment of the Maldivian Government. The article asks: what is the perception of coastal adaptation in the Maldives, and what are the potential contributions from the ICCR project? To answer this question, the article summarizes eight primary sectors vulnerable to climate change in the Maldives: human settlements, critical infrastructure, tourism, fisheries, health systems, water, food security, and coral reef biodiversity. It then describes the genesis and background behind the ICCR, which addresses many of these vulnerabilities by demonstrating coastal protection measures. Benefits to the ICCR include improving physical resilience by deploying “soft” infrastructure, institutional resilience by training policymakers and enhancing good governance, and community resilience by strengthening community assets and awareness. Challenges include ensuring that adaptation efforts are enough to truly respond to climate vulnerability, lack of coordination, and short-term thinking among business and community leaders.
Re-framing island nations as champions of resilience in the face of climate change and disaster risk
As a home to important flora and fauna, with rich cultural roots and heritage, island communities are often characterized by their deep social ties with the natural environment. However, due to environmental degradation, impacts from climate change including slow (e.g. sea level rise) and sudden (e.g. hurricanes) onset events and the associated changes to livelihood structures and opportunities, islands throughout the world face increasing threats. In order to understand and appropriately address livelihood risks in these communities and to identify opportunities for resilience-building, there is an urgent need to shed light on the historical and cultural context of island societies and ecosystems. These approaches should build upon local and traditional knowledge and be grounded in established practices developed by island communities over centuries which continue to be heavily impacted by current political and economic trends. This article presents several multi-scale case studies...
Probing Risk and Vulnerability Towards Natural Disaster: A Study Upholding Disaster Pliant Culture
Vulnerability is the state of propensity to damage from revelation to stresses related with environmental and communal change, in other words, vulnerability describes the incompetence of a system, people or a unit to encounter the effects of an inimical environment. Reducing vulnerability is a vital facet of reducing natural hazard risk. Attainment of it requires a novel approach to hazard risk and changes in governmental structures and liaisons. This paper reviews research practices of vulnerability to ecological change and confronts for current vulnerability research in amalgamating with the areas of pliability and adaptation. The purpose of this study is to widen public level indicators of vulnerability and ability to acclimatize to natural hazards. The article underlines the magnitude of measuring vulnerability and affecting factors, to decrease risk and the vulnerability of humanity. This paper synthesizes the key findings within the community development research field and those within the disaster research field. This paper is expected to create a research framework for assessing relationship between risk, hazard and vulnerability.
MATEC Web of Conferences, 2018
Small Islands face some of the main problems of any coastal area due to climate change and natural disasters. This study aims to analyze the resilience of coastal communities on a small island in terms of disasters and climate change, and to identify the strategies and adaptations that communities have undertaken as anticipatory for disaster and climate change in the future. Qualitative analysis combined with quantitative methods is used in this research to provide a clear estimate of the categories of resilience in each village. The primary data was collected by using interviews and focus discussion group and secondary data acquired through the documentation on related stakeholders. The resilience index provided by the Ministry of Maritime and Fisheries Affairs is used to categorize the resilience scales of villages. The results of this study show that the human aspects and natural resources aspects have high scores in resilience, but disaster and climate change aspects; environmen...
VULNERABILITY ANALYSIS FOR SMALL ISLANDS: THE CASE OF DULLAH ISLANDS TUAL CITY MOLLUCCAS
Dullah Island is the largest island of the 66 islands located in the city of Tual. The island Dullah approximately 94 km2 that included into the category of very small and outer islands of Indonesia. Potential Island Dullah very large as the potential of fisheries and marine tourism potential which should improve the welfare of local residents but faced pressure as complex as an ecological aspect that global climate change is triggering natural instability, tsunamis and social aspects namely population growth.The purpose of this study is to calculate the vulnerability index Dullah Island, Kota Tual.This research was conducted in Dullah Islands, Tual City, Molluccas Province Indonesia. Data were collected through observation, measurement and interview with the respondent (primary data) and secondary data collection from various sources such as AVISO, ECMWF, and the Department Hidrooseanografi consisting of geophysical data such as the average riding tide, wave height, elevation and slope typology beach, spacious island, sea level rise; ecobiolgy data such as mangrove ecosystems, coral reefs, seagrass beds; and socioeconomic and cultural conditions such as population, land use and the presence of marine conservation. This study refers to the concept of vulnerability (V) Turner et al (2003) which is an overlay function of exposure/ exposure (E), sensitivity / sensitivity (S) and the adaptive capacity / adaptive capacity (AC). Dullah Island has environmental vulnerability index which is still in the category of low vulnerability.where the value of the environmental vulnerability index for Island Dullah ranged between 1.16-4.71.
2007
Small island developing states (or SIDS) are exposed to a large number of natural hazards and many characteristics of small island developing states make them particularly vulnerable to the impacts of natural hazards. In spite of this acknowledged vulnerability, there are relatively few studies which focus on the impacts of natural hazards in these countries. This paper presents a review of our current state of knowledge of impacts in small island developing states and highlights a number of research needs. Central to these is the need to integrate natural hazards research within a sustainable development context and the need to exploit existing procedures such as government coordinated disaster impact assessments to generate a detailed understanding of natural hazards impacts.
Building Vulnerable Islander Resilience to Natural Hazard: A Participatory Approach
In last decade and so, disaster risk reduction community started paying attention on the notions of resilience; therefore, the purpose of this study is to provide an overview of human vulnerability and priority intervention issues based on vulnerability experience by which resilience can be promoted. In the context of natural hazards and disasters, coastal islands of Bangladesh are vulnerable where isolation itself works as an adverse factor regarding vulnerability so that this study chose Sandwip Island as the study area. The data collection methods included geospatial techniques and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) using 0–5 measuring scale followed by weighted matrix index (WMI) and in-depth interviews using semi-structured questionnaire. This research explored 8 major vulnerability issues and 17 urgent priority intervention issues for building vulnerable islander resilience. Authors identified that attempts in reducing vulnerability in inhabitation and livelihood is the starting point of being resilient, and it can be promoted further by undertaking interventions such as local infrastructure development and improvement in community facilities, i.e., long-term adaptation at community level, not only the post disaster responses. Finally, this research provides guideline of how resilience of coastal islanders can be promoted one step forward in the face of natural hazards and disasters.
Small island developing states: natural disaster vulnerability and global change
Global Environmental Change Part B: Environmental …, 2001
This paper sets out an examination of natural disaster amongst small island developing states (SIDS), and presents a framework for assessing the interaction of global pressures and local dynamics in the production of human vulnerability. Change at the global level is found to be a source of new opportunities as well as constraints on building local resilience to natural disaster. Much depends on the orientation of the state in global economic and political systems. The United Nations is a key global actor with relevance to shaping vulnerability in island states, and the impact of the UN Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction is reviewed. It is concluded that this is a critical time for SIDS which must contend with ongoing developmental pressures in addition to growing pressures from risks associated with global environmental change and economic liberalisation that threaten their physical and economic security. r
Avoiding Collapse: Resilience and Sustainable Development in Vulnerable Small Islands
2007
Small islands dependent on reef fisheries, farming and tourism are vulnerable to rising human and natural pressures and may target "sustainable" development. Marine Protected Areas (MPA) have a proven ability to meet ecological goals, such as restoring fisheries and preserving ecosystem function across scales. However, there is a comparative lack of scientific baseline data and social research which may help local MPA to overcome failures in achieving mixed conservation and development goals in populated coastal areas facing intense pressure. This fieldwork-based case study researched in French and Creole languages in the sub-tropical, mid-Oceanic island of Rodrigues (Mauritius, Indian Ocean) addresses two main questions: "Are conservation and development compatible goals for MPA in small islands reliant on fisheries and tourism?", and, "Do social-ecological resilience concepts help clarify related issues of sustainability?". Results from two quantitati...
Social-ecological resilience on New Providence (The Bahamas). A field trip report
2012
In the context of increasing natural or man-made hazards and global environmental change, the study of (scientific and technological) uncertainty, vulnerability and resilience of social-ecological systems represents a core area of human-environmental geography (cf. CASTREE et al. 2009; ZIMMERER 2010). Extreme geophysical events, coupled with the social construction and production of risks and vulnerabilities (viewed as hazards), raise questions on the limits of knowledge and create long-term social uncertainty that has to be acknowledged as such. Recent means of socioeconomic production and consumption have frequently led to the loss or degradation of ecosystem services on which humans depend (HASSAN et al. 2005). In order to move towards resilience and sustainability, significant changes thus need to be considered at multiple levels in emergency and environmental planning, policies and institutions. When it comes to diagnosing why socialecological systems develop sustainably or not, a major challenge is to find common frameworks for investigating the dynamic interactions between social systems integrated by governance and communication, and biophysical systems connected by material and energy flows (e.g. HA-BERL et al. 2006; OSTROM 2009). Coastal and island ecosystems are some of the most valuable and productive ecosystems worldwide yet highly threatened (HASSAN et al. 2005). Numerous small island developing states (SIDS) are sensitive to natural hazards such as landfall storms, flooding, tsunamis, increases in sea temperature and sea-level rise (PELLING/UITTO 2001; UNFCCC 2007). Small islands sharing the 'isola effects' (or 'insularity', cf. BAYLISS-SMITH 1988; ROYLE 2001) are particularly vulnerable to external shocks and the impacts of social-ecological interplay. Climate and environmental change are some of the obvious concerns, but the social-ecological vulnerability of small islands is exacerbated by limited land-based resources, economic dependency, emigration or manipulation by richer governments and corporations. Recent island studies have suggested limits in the interdisciplinary understanding of long-term social and ecological trends and vulnerabilities. Shortcomings are also noted when it comes to the integration of local and traditional knowledge in assessing the impacts of external stressors (e.g. MÉHEUX et al. 2007; KELMAN/WEST 2009). In the Caribbean, small island coastal ecosystems provide both direct and indirect use values. Indirect environmental services of coral reefs, sea grass beds and coastal mangroves include the protection of coastlines against wave action and erosion, as well as the preservation of habitats of animals including those of commercial importance. Human activity threatens the regenerative capacity of these inshore marine ecosystems, e.g. by pollution, reef degradation through chronic overfishing and bomb fishing, land development (cf. Fig. 1), mangrove degradation and increased nutrient and sediment runoff (LEWSEY et al. 2004; BRETON et al. 2006). With the added impact of external shocks such as hurricanes, many degraded reefs have undergone phase changes or regime shifts (e.g. coral bleaching, macroalgae domination), which is equivalent to erosion of the ecosystem's resilience (cf. GARDNER et al. 2003; MUMBY 2007). Ecological and social vulnerability to such disturbances and disasters is influenced by the build-up or erosion of resilience. Concepts of resilience generally focus on the capacity of the system to absorb shocks whilst still remaining functional, as well as the system's capacity of renewal and development in coping with change and crisis (FOLKE 2006; GAILLARD 2010). An ecological resilience perspective (HOLLING 1973, 1986) has come to be embedded in theories of complex adaptive systems based on multi-agent systems. The question is how periods of gradual change interplay with periods of rapid change and how such dynamics interact across temporal and spatial scales.
A VOYAGE TO DISASTER RESILIENCE IN SMALL ISLANDS: A GUIDE FOR LOCAL LEADERS
This Guidebook is a product of a participatory, empirical and evidence-based learning process that resulted from the experience of the volcanic island of Rapu-Rapu in Albay, the island province of Marinduque and the coral atoll of Jomalig in Quezon. Efforts to look into developing a pilot resilience model for small island communities began during the successful implementation of the Building Disaster-Resilient Communities (BDRC) Project by Christian Aid and its partners, which published case studies for addressing vulnerabilities in various community contexts nationwide. Partners then saw the need to look into the specific conditions of small islands and develop an approach that would be suitable for such contexts. Thus, the Building Disaster-Resilient Small Island Communities Projectcame about.
Social-Ecological Resilience on New Providence (Th e Bahamas) A Field Trip Report - Summary
2012
In the context of increasing natural or man-made hazards and global environmental change, the study of (scientific and technological) uncertainty, vulnerability and resilience of social-ecological systems represents a core area of human-environmental geography (cf. CASTREE et al. 2009; ZIMMERER 2010). Extreme geophysical events, coupled with the social construction and production of risks and vulnerabilities (viewed as hazards), raise questions on the limits of knowledge and create long-term social uncertainty that has to be acknowledged as such. Recent means of socioeconomic production and consumption have frequently led to the loss or degradation of ecosystem services on which humans depend (HASSAN et al. 2005). In order to move towards resilience and sustainability, significant changes thus need to be considered at multiple levels in emergency and environmental planning, policies and institutions. When it comes to diagnosing why socialecological systems develop sustainably or not, a major challenge is to find common frameworks for investigating the dynamic interactions between social systems integrated by governance and communication, and biophysical systems connected by material and energy flows (e.g. HA-BERL et al. 2006; OSTROM 2009). Coastal and island ecosystems are some of the most valuable and productive ecosystems worldwide yet highly threatened (HASSAN et al. 2005). Numerous small island developing states (SIDS) are sensitive to natural hazards such as landfall storms, flooding, tsunamis, increases in sea temperature and sea-level rise (PELLING/UITTO 2001; UNFCCC 2007). Small islands sharing the 'isola effects' (or 'insularity', cf. BAYLISS-SMITH 1988; ROYLE 2001) are particularly vulnerable to external shocks and the impacts of social-ecological interplay. Climate and environmental change are some of the obvious concerns, but the social-ecological vulnerability of small islands is exacerbated by limited land-based resources, economic dependency, emigration or manipulation by richer governments and corporations. Recent island studies have suggested limits in the interdisciplinary understanding of long-term social and ecological trends and vulnerabilities. Shortcomings are also noted when it comes to the integration of local and traditional knowledge in assessing the impacts of external stressors (e.g. MÉHEUX et al. 2007; KELMAN/WEST 2009). In the Caribbean, small island coastal ecosystems provide both direct and indirect use values. Indirect environmental services of coral reefs, sea grass beds and coastal mangroves include the protection of coastlines against wave action and erosion, as well as the preservation of habitats of animals including those of commercial importance. Human activity threatens the regenerative capacity of these inshore marine ecosystems, e.g. by pollution, reef degradation through chronic overfishing and bomb fishing, land development (cf. Fig. 1), mangrove degradation and increased nutrient and sediment runoff (LEWSEY et al. 2004; BRETON et al. 2006). With the added impact of external shocks such as hurricanes, many degraded reefs have undergone phase changes or regime shifts (e.g. coral bleaching, macroalgae domination), which is equivalent to erosion of the ecosystem's resilience (cf. GARDNER et al. 2003; MUMBY 2007). Ecological and social vulnerability to such disturbances and disasters is influenced by the build-up or erosion of resilience. Concepts of resilience generally focus on the capacity of the system to absorb shocks whilst still remaining functional, as well as the system's capacity of renewal and development in coping with change and crisis (FOLKE 2006; GAILLARD 2010). An ecological resilience perspective (HOLLING 1973, 1986) has come to be embedded in theories of complex adaptive systems based on multi-agent systems. The question is how periods of gradual change interplay with periods of rapid change and how such dynamics interact across temporal and spatial scales.