1

Climate Resilience and

Sustainable Urban Development
in the Pacific

Mahfuz Ahmed
Tom Connor
 The Issue – Vulnerability of Pacific Developing Countries
to climate change & urbanisation

 Small size & remoteness; Fragile biodiversity

 Exposure to natural hazards

 Many are at low elevations above mean sea level, and generally flat

 Populations are mostly located in the coastal areas

(eg 70 – 80 percent of the population of Samoa live near the coast1)

 Modification of coastlines for human habitation and extensive foreshore

developments make coastal urban communities more exposed to the sea
and vulnerable to coastal erosion
[eg dredging, water infrastructure, port and harbour construction, airport
construction, reclamation, tourist facilities]
 Rivers/estuaries often run through urban centres

1 Daly et al, 2010

 Impacts of Climate Change
 Australian States have set sea level rise
planning benchmarks of around 30-
40cm by 2050 and 90 cm by 2100
 Sea level rise impacts
 Coastal erosion
 Urban drainage
 Inundation
 Threats to natural and cultural values
 Salinity of aquifers
 Saline intrusion into water supply
systems
 Loss of agricultural areas
 Impacts of Climate Change
 Severe and more frequent
natural disasters
 Cyclones
 Storm surge
 Flooding
 Landslips
 More intense rainfall events and
subsequent flooding
 Higher winds
•Data2 for 1990-present show 63 cyclones affected the
region, with 6,046 deaths, over 406,000 people affected,
and with damage costs more than US $807 Million
2. Maharaj, R. Pacific Islands at Risk: Foreshore Development and their
Vulerability and Implications for Adaption Strategies to Climate Change
Urbanisation
 Cities are at the centre of a spatial shift in the region from
rural to an urban livelihood3
 Urban growth rates have outpaced rural population growth
everywhere in the Pacific over the past 25 to 30 years4
 At current rates, urban populations throughout Melanesia are
expected to double in one generation (25 years), with the
Solomon Islands and Vanuatu likely to achieve this in 16 and
17 years respectively, and American Samoa, Kiribati and the
Northern Marianas in 20 years4
3. Storey, D. 2006, Urbanisation in the Pacific
4. HABERKORN, 2008. Pacific Islands’ Population and Development: Facts, Fictions and Follies
Pacific Urban versus National
Population Growth
Country % Urban Annual urban growth
Population rate/(national rate)
Fiji Islands 46 2.6 / (0.8)
PNG 13 2.8 / (2.7)
New Caledonia 60 2.8 / (2.6)
Kiribati 43 5.2 / (1.7)
Samoa 22 1.3 / (0.9)
Tonga 32 0.8 / (0.3)
Guam 93 - / (1.5)

Palau 81 2.2 / (2.1)

Marshall Islands 65 1.6 / (1.4)
Urbanisation
 Results in rising demand for water, transport,
energy, health and sanitation services
 Often in constrained areas; and impacting natural
resource systems
 This increases the complexity and intensifies the
challenges of adapting to the impacts of climate
change
 Urban areas often contain poorer communities:
those most vulnerable to loss
Climate change vulnerability
Extension of Disaster Risk Management
to Climate Change
 The approach to addressing disaster risk management can
be used to address climate change issues [“not reinventing
the wheel5”]
 Extreme event frequency increasing
 Greater likelihood of an event worse than recorded
 Efficiency in adapting within natural disaster management

5. Mercer.J 2010 Disaster Risk Reduction or Climate Change: Are We Reinventing the Wheel.
 Natural Disasters Quang Ngai – Viet Nam
One five year period
QUANG NGAI PROVINCE -
 325 deaths
 5,500 houses lost
 207,000 houses flooded
 90 fishing boats lost
 1,400 classrooms destroyed or damaged
 Total damage cost 1400 billion Dong
Project Components
Extending Disaster Management (DM) to Climate
Change Adaptation (CCA) with Similar Tools
 (DM) Capacity Building for Vulnerable Communities
 (DM) Floodplain Management Planning using floodplain modelling
as a critical tool
 (DM) Demonstration NDM Infrastructure
 (DM) Provincial Centre for Management/Mitigation of NDs
 (CCA) Add CC impacts into modelling tool
 (CCA) CC combinations to alert to increasing frequency
 (CCA) Alert / prepare community for events beyond record
 (CCA) Planning for development to proceed but with this knowledge:
no worsening; and prepared for CC
 (CCA) Some issues are beyond DM – retreat, resilience for sea level
rise impacts
ADB Proposal
 Develop an approach to address the urban
situation across Pacific Developing Countries (PDC)

 Consult with PDC stakeholders on potential

strategies and actions

 Develop and promote strategies and actions

Infrastructure vulnerability
 Review existing studies and reports which highlight
vulnerability aspects in the urban environment

 Examine vulnerability of infrastructure to climate

change in expanding urban areas

 Propose adaptive actions to ameliorate risks

Assessment and analysis
 Better understanding of desired actions for
problems arising from rapid urbanisation in the face
of the climate change threat

 Identify key climate resilience issues

 Alternative solutions for climate adaptation through

sustainable urban development
Potential of integrated coastal zone
management in the solution

 Integrated coastal zone management offers a

broad and holistic framework for addressing
climate change issues

 Also offers the opportunity to mainstream climate

change adaptation and hence increase adaptive
capacity
Summary

 Urbanisation is one of the critical issues

exacerbated by climate change

 The issues are complex and difficult – made so by

historic development patterns and recent population
trends

 It is proposed that this issue needs special attention

as adaptation moves to action