Description of the application

On the Maldives Islands, the groundwater becomes very saline due to insufficient aquifer recharge. It becomes even more saline in the dry periods as the demand for groundwater increases. Infiltration galleries are hence used to supply ground water in the Islands.

Lessons learned

The vulnerability to climate change and sea-level rise is revealed through the indicators obtained from the SOE survey. Twenty four islands have already exceeded their withholding capacity and do not have additional land for housing. Housing and other infrastructure is reaching closer to the shoreline. At present more than 73 percent of the inhabited islands have building less than 100 ft away from the shoreline, with 2 percent of the islands having buildings right at the shoreline while 55 percent of the islands have buildings less than 50 ft away from the shoreline. During May 2004 more than 57 percent of the inhabited islands from 18 atolls reported damages by the severe weather incident. During this episode 71 inhabited islands were flooded causing over 102 million US dollars worth of damage. On an average this is over 1 million US dollars worth of damage per island. Other vulnerabilities due to sea surface warming includes coral bleaching and mortality events, salt water intrusion, inundation of land impacting on the availability of fresh water, impact on human health, vulnerability to changes in productivity of agricultural lands beyond our borders due to our dependency on imported food and other items.

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Last modified: Sept. 12, 2016, 7:06 a.m.