Australasian Coasts and Ports Conference, 2025, Adelaide
Pacific Island Countries (PICs), in particular low-lying atoll nations such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), face a unique set of development challenges being susceptible to coastal hazards and climate change, having populations that are small but are concentrated in urban areas and with low GDPs and often limited natural resources. Safeguarding these vulnerable atoll countries in the long-term is likely to involve either very significant physical works or large-scale migration. The World Bank, supported by Deltares and Tonkin + Taylor developed a range of potential adaptation pathways considering sea level rise increments of 0.25 m, 0.5 m, 1 m and 2 m. The studies found that once sea levels rise by over 1m, adaptation responses including land raising and reclamation are likely to cost 10s of billions USD and require hundreds of millions m3 of aggregate and rock.
However, while these long-term and large-scale adaptation works are being considered, short to medium term actions are required to protect assets and communities from erosion and wave impacts considering lower rates of sea level rise. The Urban Resilience Project in RMI seeks to protect critical public assets and, while works focus on immediate to medium-term solutions, the ability to integrate these with long-term planning through adaptive design was considered. This paper summarises the approach taken and findings of both the largescale and long-term regional planning, and shorter-term resilience projects, providing examples of how these project scales may be integrated efficiently and sustainably. Lessons learned from this process that can have applications across PICs are also identified.
