- Title
- Climate risk management in Maldives
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- Abstract
- Maldives is an island nation in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is the smallest Asian country in both population and land area. With an average ground level of 1.5 meters (4 ft 11 in) above sea level, it is also the world’s lowest country.
The economy of Maldives has grown very rapidly in the last decade -- at the rate of 6.5 percent GDP. The development process of Maldives entailed huge pressure on natural resources that supports the critical sectors of tourism and sheries. From 1970s onwards, the population of Maldives has increased four-fold from 70,000 to 350,000 people and the economy has expanded 10 times from less than US$ 200 million to almost US$ 2 billion in GDP (2012). Population and development have exerted pressure on its scarce land resources in Maldives that constitute 1 percent of its total area. Maldives underwent a land modi cation process in the last two decades, which involved change in land use systems, and addition of land through land reclamation. The land modi cation process largely disregarded the fragile coral based environment, ecosystems and climate risk features. This resulted in poor design of critical infrastructure for water, sanitation, drainage, settlements, waste disposal, communication and health.
This development pattern particularly in the small islands (with less than 0.5 sq km), weakened the rst line natural defences like coral reefs, mangroves and coastal vegetation. It thus exposed existing and new critical infrastructures like roads, airports, harbours, coastal protection structures, tourist facilities, hospitals and schools to climate risks. The value of new assets exposed to climate risks is around US$ 2 billion.
In recognition of these challenges, the Government of Maldives (GoM) has proposed to build an environment friendly and diversi ed economy as part of its Seventh Development Plan and policy documents. It strives for a sustaining growth rate of 6 percent to meet the needs of its growing population and the demands of their living standards. However, it is expected that development aspirations of growing population might increase the countries’ initial dependence on tourism and sheries before alternate economic diversi cation in the short and medium term is undertaken.
For instance, within the tourism sector, in addition to the existing 87 island resorts there are plans to develop 30 additional islands increasing the current bed capacity from 21,000 to 35,000 to attract around 1 million tourists. The sheries sector is also under tremendous stress as capital investment is rapidly increasing with privatization, and making the sector and local community vulnerable. Last two decades of development induced vulnerabilities and the future development processes will expose more critical infrastructure, economic systems and production to risk. Climate change is projected to further aggravate this risk.
- Publication Date
- Jan. 1, 2013, 6 p.m.
- Category
- Climatology Meteorology Atmosphere
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processes and phenomena of the atmosphere. Examples: cloud cover, weather, climate, atmospheric conditions, climate change, precipitation
- Regions
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Maldives
- Responsible
- andy
- More info
- -
- Language
- English
- Supplemental Information
- coastal_flood, strong_wind, drought, urban_flood, extreme_heat, wildfire, landslide
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