Hulhumalé: Are Artificial Islands a Solution or Problem for Island Countries Grappling with Rising Seas?
As the negative impacts of climate change continue to take a toll on the world, many countries that are disproportionately affected by climate change are forced to take immediate, and sometimes drastic, action. While most countries in the developed world are starting to see the first ripple effects of human induced global warming, many island nations are grappling with a truly existential conundrum brought upon by rising sea levels.
Island nations are unfairly saddled with the negative impacts of climate change. Countries such as the Maldives, Marshall Islands, Fiji, and Solomon Islands emit an insignificant amount of dangerous greenhouse gasses compared to the United States, China, and the rest of the developed world. However, the rising sea levels that are a direct result of man-made climate change threaten to submerge small, low-lying islands. Many island countries are facing the possibility of losing their homelands by the year 2100 if climate change and rising sea levels are not mitigated. If entire islands need to be permanently abandoned, this may force mass migration to other countries and create a population of climate refugees unheard of for centuries, which will only exacerbate current immigration problems across the globe.
In 1997, The Maldives began a historic project to create a new island for its citizens to live on. Named Hulhumalé, or “The City of Hope”, the island was created by pumping millions of cubic meters of sand from the seabed. The island itself was built at a higher elevation than most naturally occurring Maldivian islands, and was designed with a myriad of coastal resiliency infrastructure measures to mitigate rising sea level infrastructure.
As the world ponders increasingly ambitious geoengineering solutions to climate change, Hulhumalé stands out as a technologically feasible and pragmatic solution. However, while this island is already showing promising benefits for the Maldives, is this a strategy that can be scaled up by other island countries to save their people and their homelands? Or is it a temporary solution that may exacerbate other problems?
Creating an artificial island such as Hulhumalé inevitably results in both positive and negative effects. The benefits of building a new settlement on an artificial island are that the whole infrastructure can be designed to create a climate resilient, sustainable smart city. Hulhumalé incorporated solar energy to power a third of the island, rainwater harvesting infrastructure to improve fresh water security, housing built north-south to reduce heat gain and streets designed to optimize wind penetration and reduce reliance on air conditioning. All these measures are excellent ways to protect Maldivian citizens from various challenges brought upon by climate change, and set up the settlement as a model in sustainability for islands across the world.
For all the positive aspects of creating a new artificial island, there are inevitable drawbacks. The biggest inhibitor for creating artificial islands is the cost. The island had to be constructed in stages, since the price of erecting a new island in the Indian Ocean cost hundreds of millions of dollars. While there is no true cost estimate for Hulhumalé, the initial project cost $63 million, further expansion of the island cost $50 million, and the development of a major housing project cost over $130 million. These numbers do not even account for the development of additional crucial infrastructure as The Maldives builds a city from scratch. For a small island country, the massive financial investment of building more artificial land may not be monetarily feasible, and is certainly not a practice that can be repeated on a large scale at such high costs.
Analysis: While artificial islands can help create more sustainable island communities, they should be viewed as a last resort option and be meticulously researched before widespread usage.
The flourishing Hulhumalé project represents the best possible outcome for the development of artificial islands. The Maldives have created a place that can support a large percentage of the country’s population with sustainable infrastructure and energy systems, all at a higher elevation than most of the country's islands.
However, the tremendous success of Hulhumalé does not necessarily indicate that this project could work for other small island countries. Outside of the large financial investment needed for an artificial land project, there are many other potential limiting factors such as suitable area to build the artificial island and islanders unwillingness to leave their current settlements due to cultural ties. Another significant drawback is that the construction of artificial islands can severely damage coral reefs and other marine life, such as fish populations. The ocean environment is an invaluable resource to island counties, especially small countries, both as a source of local food and as a primary economic driver via tourism and other specialty exports. If an artificial island is poorly planned or constructed with disregard for the environment, the negative repercussions of a permanently damaged surrounding ecosystem will cause substantial social and economic problems for the island country, potentially leaving them in a worse position than before the artificial land was created.
While the benefits of creating more Hulhumalé-esque settlements are tantalizing, the guaranteed drawbacks outweigh the potential benefits of artificial islands. As sea levels rise, island countries must continue to dedicate immense resources to climate resiliency efforts, such as fortifying coastal cities, restoring land lost to erosion, elevating infrastructure where possible and using their platforms to call on powerful global countries for help in mitigating the effects of climate change. However, if the world continues to struggle reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the pace needed to limit the worst impacts of rising sea levels, the most vulnerable island countries should look towards developing artificial islands in a fiscally and environmentally responsible manner, as a last resort to save their populations. In that dire scenario, countries will have the “City of Hope” to follow as a pristine example to coping with rising sea levels.
Bibliography
Image from the Maldives Independent
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