SPP 1889 “Regional Sea Level Change and Society”

DICESDealing with change in SIDS - Societal action and political reaction in sea level change adaptation in Small Island Developing States

Prof. Dr. Beate Ratter - Universität Hamburg, Institut für GeographieProf. Dr. Katrin Rehdanz - Universität Kiel, Institut für WeltwirtschaftProf. Dr. Torsten Schlurmann - Universität Hannover, Franzius-Institut für Wasserbau

Juvenile mangrove plants protected by bamboo fences for coastal protection, Kok Kham, Thailand

Coconut fiber geotextiles as beach revetment at Tabanan Beach, Bali, Indonesia

Study Site 1: Typical coastal defense structure at Gan-Hithadhoo Causeway, Addu-Atoll, Maldives

Study Site 2: Relocation camp of people from Carteret Islands in Tinputz, Papua New Guinea

WP1: Integrated activity and coordination

Knowledge Exchange

Case Study: Maledives

Case Study: Bougainville

WP2: Engineering Strategies

WP3: Perception and governance

structures

WP4: Choices and Preferences

Knowledge Exchange

Phase 2

BackgroundSmall Island Development States (SIDS) are particularly vul-nerable to the impacts of future climate change and asso-ciated triggered coastal processes. So far, island instability combined with human activities has often resulted in the proliferation of engineering-type hard-coastal protection systems to defend coastal areas up to a certain level of secu-rity from coastal hazards. There is significant evidence that traditional accommodation strategies gave way to mod-ernization, but, in some cases, politically induced malad-aptation seems to aggravate coastal management issues and induce additional problems (e.g. IPCC 2014; Barnett/O’Neill 2010; Connell 2013).

Study SitesDICES will use two case study sites and compare results for the SIDS of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and the Maldives. Both island states are composed of different islands with a broad variety of size, regionally specific coastal situa-tion regarding e.g. geology and typology, differences in development status, cultural and governance settings.

Research ObjectivesDICES will investigate which socio-institutional factors en-able or hinder SIDS to cope with changing sea level and as-sess coastal risk strategies to adapt under technical, eco-nomic, cultural, social and political constraints through the development of probabilistic pathway design for alterna-tive coastal engineering strategies. DICES will thus assesspeople’s trade-off decisions between protection measures and the implications for implementation. DICES is unique in enabling, for the first time, an integrative assessment of the factors and driving forces of adaptation to sea level change in SIDS.

Research methodsThe project brings together three different disciplines (coastal engineering and management, integrative geo-graphy, behavioural and environmental economics) and their different qualitative and quantitative methodologi-cal approaches, ranging from household surveys, choice and field experiments, focus group discussions, coastal field surveys to coastal engineering modelling attempts.

SPP1889 WP C: Socio-economic Impacts and Risk Governance

(c) G. David, 2014(c) H. Friedrich, 2014

(c) D. Richardson, 2011 (c) A. Pondorfer, 2014