With the sea level rise the danger of saltwater intrusion will be a major problem.  Maintaining increased infiltration of rain water can increase the thickness of the freshwater lense to mitigate sea water intrusion.   The landscape architecture and planning should incorporate methods to improve rain water harvesting and infiltration to prevent saltwater intrusion.

Sea level rise is not a one time phenomenon it is continuos. Building floating structures will tackle any sea level rise in present and future. Venice is sruviving for so long why can't a floating city.

Assuming adaptation embraces sustainable cost effective relatively fast to apply solutions with long service life to combat the continuing onset of SLR, including a focus on land based impacts (developmental) as distinct from just Global Warming and resultant influences of Climate Change........ and  is not  confined strictly to the purist "natural solutions" then I would feel confident that through existing knowledge, an ongoing research utilizing adaptive interpretations of new techniques, materials, some past idea's  (many problematic) and engineered solutions, including successes, failure,problems & discussions from around the globe, that outcomes from that research topic would be not only interesting but of great input to the field and the region. The collaboration of disciplines you have mentioned are relevant in the least through Building design, Urban design & ecological considerations - they all deal with designing land surfaces for improved ecologically responsible environments as fundamental. The various spin off's and sheer number of individual interests within these professions would add great depth to knowledge base during the process. Longer term, CO2 is the culprit to nail however the politics takes too long to fix the oncoming problems before they are needed. We need to move now otherwise I am with Roohal Khan who isn't alone on that topic of floating cities. I have little information as to relevant available Papers at this point apart from mentioning - Robin G.D. Davidson-Arnott, Department of Geography,University of Guelph who is involved in this area of research. I have just started following him. Cheers & good luck with this, I am following. 

David, Roohal, Ramanathan,

Thank you for your comments.

Identifying major issues in the Australasia / Pacific relating to the already noticeable impact of climate change and sea level rise ( this is not the only impact, loss of food production and fertile soils due to salinization / salt water intrusion is major problem) - as per Ramanathan's comments, adaptation for these islands and indigenous communities will be crucial. Unfortunately in practice I found very little are done from the Architecture, Planning and Engineering Design professions.

"International Development' focus on helping development countries, but trying to find good work done in assisting communities to mitigate or adapt to the impact of a rapidly changing environment for local cultures in South Pacific Islands is hard to find. Reduction of CO2, and even stopping emissions right now, will not help for these low lying islands. The only option is adaptation, new design, planning and building practices, and in some cases unfortunately the only option is migration and for communities to leave their homeland behind. This is now happening with the nation of Kiribati. 

sand bags and certain types of vegetation has the capacity to control the progress of water on the shoreline.i think u should try those grounds as it cheap and easy to impliment.

Depending on the local situation of the Pacific island communities in question there are likely to be two fundamentally different adaptation approaches:

1) On larger islands with significant land areas well above sea-levels it should be possible continue to continue to occupy in future through a combination of migrating smaller settlements to higher ground and implementing combinations of defence (completely exclude tidal waters from neighbourhoods); resistance (keep water out of buildings) and resilience (adapt buildings to cope with periodic flooding) to maintain larger settlements that occupy low-lying sites. Ideally some form of storm/flood warning and evacuation system would be most useful also to reduce immediate risks to people of continuing to occupy flood risk zones. This does assume community willingness to adapt, good governmental organisation and appropriate funding. In some cases this could require external technical and economic aid;

2) Smaller islands and those whose land surfaces do not extend much above sea-levels (e.g. coral atolls) are likely to be too inherently vulnerable to be occupied beyond the short to medium term. There would be likely to be increasing problems with sources of fresh water, increasing flooding of the land and salinisation of soils. Such islands are often also limited in their technical or economic capacities to adapt insitu. Instead, I would argue that a key component of adaptation in the Pacific Islands would be to offer assistance in relocating communities whose home islands are likely in future to become marginal or uninhabitable due to rising sea-levels and other climate change impacts. An excellent article broadly covering this topic can be found via this link: http://www.nature.com/news/human-adaptation-manage-climate-induced-resettlement-1.16697

Planning for these types of arrangements should begin now as the issues involved in relocating communities can be complex and may require time to address. I would like to think that developing countires will increasingly feel moral obligations to offer the assistance necessary to manage these relocations wherever communities and their host nations are unable to cope.

I hope that these considerations provide a broader perspective into which the architectural, landscape and planning considerations raised in the question can play important roles.

When cities are at risk and technical and economic resources are available then there are options to design some quite far-reaching adaptations into the fabric of otherwise vulnerable coastal cities. I can offer the following examples:

1) NE coast of USA - I just came across this link to some most interesting projects: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S41/83/22A21/index.xml

2) Facing up to rising sea-levels: Portsmouth and Hull, UK. brainstorming of possible adaptation designs to secure the futures of these cities that presently are located at or in places below current sea-levels. Portsmouth is my home city!!

Maybe there are some ideas here that can be adapted towards cities in the Pacific region?

Oops! Below is the missing link from my answer above - apologies!

http://www.buildingfutures.org.uk/assets/downloads/Facing_Up_To_Rising_Sea_Levels.pdf

Malcolm, great, thanks for all of the information and links. You mentioned in your previous post that when technical and economic resources are available then there are options for adaptation design and implementation, that is indeed true, but the issue in the small Pacific Island Nations, is exactly this, no funds and very limited access to technical skills and knowledge. How can we overcome this and address this problem? 

Phillip,

A strong case can be made for funding of adaptation costs for cities and larger settlements at risk as explained by Hallegate et al (2013) in their paper entitled "Future flood losses in major coastal cities"  http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n9/full/nclimate1979.html

http://blogs.worldbank.org/climatechange/increasing-flood-risks-create-major-challenges-worlds-coastal-cities

http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/08/19/coastal-cities-at-highest-risk-floods

You are correct to point out that this is not the case for for small Pacific Island Nations. In my earlier answer I intended to suggest that developed (not "developing" - my mistake!) nations should feel moral obligation to provide technical and economic assistance in the form of advance planning to determine: (i) which islands are likely to be sustainable to continue to occupy and to facilitate necessary adaptation measures and (ii) which islands may require their populations to be relocated, when that would be necessary, and what relocation options there are available. The earlier this sort of planning is begun the greater the opportunities for a successful outcome for the islanders and for avoiding some of the potential for creation of conflicts that can sometimes occur when relocating populations.

So who should lead? Perhaps the World Bank could lead and co-ordinate and attract or channel aid grants or loans from other nations. In the example of Choiseul, township in the Soloman islands the national government took the lead but is hopeful of attracting grants to fund the very significant relocation costs.  http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/08/15/us-foundation-climatechange-solomons-idUSKBN0GF1AB20140815

The options available in the case of Kiribati are discussed in the following article: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259535559_Escaping_a_Rising_Tide_Sea_Level_Rise_and_Migration_in_Kiribati

Other examples and discussions can be found on google using the keywords "coral atoll" and relocation or kiribati and relocation.

Perhaps areas abandoned could be declared National Parks and managed for conservation - perhaps coral atolls abandoned could become conservation refuges for coral reefs? My guess is that populations of developed countries would be supportive of their foreign aid being used in this manner. Other benefits for developed nations of advance concerted action to manage these issues would be to reduce or delay the occurrences of "climate refugees."  

I hope that this provides a partial answer to your question, but the future scenarios for these islands really do generate some very difficult questions.

Article Escaping a Rising Tide: Sea Level Rise and Migration in Kiribati

Hi Phillip,

Case studies of Kiribati will be most relevant and popular to your interests. Perhaps other publications such as "Climate change in the Federated States of Micronesia: Food and water security, climate risk management, and adaptive strategies" will be interesting and helpful at the link provided. We also provide a methodology to mapping sea-level rise for pacific islands in our paper "Assessing vulnerability due to sea-level rise in Maui, Hawai‘i using LiDAR remote sensing and GIS".

To give a more human geography perspective, I thought this case study done by student Janice Cantieri was interesting where an elderly women's opinion was to have Americans, Australians, and New Zealanders marry their people and take them back to their country. In other words, you called it, migration.

Hopefully this helps.

http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/coasts/publications/index.html

http://pulitzercenter.org/projects/kiribati-tarawa-micronesia-gilbert-islands-climate-change-migration

Philip and followers of this question,

The recent impact of cyclone Pam on the Vanuatu islands demonstrates the need to resolve some of the issues posed by climate extremes and climate change for South Pacific islands.

Although our thoughts are presently with the well-being of Vanuatu's inhabitants and the speed and effectiveness of relief efforts, this event may offer clues as to HOW longer term issues of climate change adaptation can be addressed and WHO can provide necessary technical and economic support. I can draw attention to the following:

1) The issues of climate change and long term adaptation have already been raised in respect of cyclone Pam by the presidents of Vanuatu and Kiribati. (See links below). It suggests that some key debates have been initiated. For example to what extent can part of the relief effort be channeled into long term planning?;

2) Is cyclone Pam a result of climate change? It would be very difficult to prove a direct causal link so to be safe I would say we cannot tell. However, it is exactly the type of event that we would expect to see more frequently in the future as climate change develops;

3) The relief response to this event may help to indicate who could provide technical and economic support for longer term climate change adaptation. In the case of Vaunatu, Australia and New Zealand appear to have reacted most quickly with Great Britain and France also making arrangements for significant logistical and economic support. It suggests that Australia and New Zealand have strong geographical interests and in some cases community links with South Pacific islands. Also it appears that former colonial powers feel strong obligations since from 1906 up to independence in 1980 Vanuatu was administered jointly by Britain and France;

4) My immediate analysis of who might therefore have the greatest interests in assisting South Pacific Islands to adapt to climate change would suggest Australia, New Zealand together with the relevant former colonial powers (according to the islands concerned) and international co-ordination by the United Nations and the World Bank. Uncertainties relate to potential assistance from other major powers such as USA and Japan and the future roles of NGO's. To date NGO's have focused more on reactive relief and emergency aid, but in future perhaps they could become more anticipatory and proactive?

5) Finally, the severe impacts of cyclone Pam on Vanuatu raises some practical medium-term questions such as whether all settlements damaged would be reconstructed? would some be moved to higher ground? to what extent could new constructions be made more storm resistant? could some of the more remote islands be abandoned and their communities relocated? would it be feasible for storm warnings and emergency preparedness plans to be developed?

In short, cyclone Pam has the potential to trigger some of the climate change adaptation planning that ultimately could benefit all South Pacific islands. It will be interesting to monitor the aftermath of the storm to see the extent to which that happens.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/16/vanuatus-president-blames-climate-change-for-extreme-weather

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-31866783

Philip and followers of this question,

A further contribution in respect of the question as to who can provide necessary technical and financial support is the Global Climate Change Alliance funded by the European Union. In particular their website provides downloadable climate change profiles for nine Pacific island nations Each provides country-specific background information on development strategies, the economy and financial management, the current and future expected climate and the response to climate change (including governance arrangements), assess ongoing climate change activities, and identify national priorities as well as gaps and constraints. Please see the link below for details:

http://www.gcca.eu/regional-programmes/gcca-pacific-small-island-states

Malcolm, the issue you have raised here is very important. The world cannot do the same thing over and over again and expect a different results. We are more certain now that climate change will increase the intensity of storms particularly in south pacific regions. It is therefore important for the relief and donor agencies to provide both technical and economic support to Vanuatu to plan and rebuild their towns and villages in a sustainable manner or in a way that could adapt/withstand future storms. Our heart and mind are with them in this trying moment of the country. However it is important to give them this consolatory advice that there could be opportunity in adversity.