Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Infrastructure in the Pacific

Abstract

This chapter discusses the potential impacts of climate change on coastal infrastructure in the Pacific. It also analyses the location of built infrastructure in 12 Pacific island countries with a view to determining the percentages in close proximity to the coast and so highly vulnerable to climate-related impacts. Data relating to the geographic location of all built infrastructure for 12 countries was obtained from various sources or coded directly. Buffer ranges of 0–50, 50–100, 100–200 and 200–500 m were created for each of the islands and the number of built infrastructure in each band was determined. Overall, for the 12 PICs, 57% of the built infrastructure is within 500m of the coastline. For the individual bands assessed here, 9%, 11%, 16% and 21% fall in intervals of 0–50 m, 50–100 m, 100–200 m and 200–500 m intervals, respectively. Therefore only 43% of built infrastructure is beyond 500 m of the coastline when all 12 PICs are considered together.