Transcript
NATHAN EATON: Coastal Risk Vanuatu is an openly available website that shows us what the coastline of Vanuatu would look like in the year 2100 with the predicted effects of sea level rise due to climate change.
KOROI HAWKINS: And you say this is based on three scientific scenarios, what scenarios are those?
NE: So we have used these scenarios as provided by the intergovernmental panel on climate change and they have got low medium and high scenarios based on different emissions essentially that are put out. And the high scenario ends up being a 74 centimetre rise in sea levels by the year 2100, the medium scenario is a 54 centimetre rise and then the low scenario ends up being a 44 centimetre rise. And so we show all those scenarios in the website.
KH: And who is it aimed for? It is open so everyone can access it but who are you targeting it for?
NE: Our main focus for this website is really to keep doing awareness on the effects of climate change and to really help communicate climate change science. So we have a broad range of people that we think need to know this information and need to use this for effective decision making to help protect the communities of Vanuatu. Ranging from government authorities right through to a number of different aid projects and aid programs. That need to consider the future impacts of sea level rise for the projects they are working on.
KH: Right and so I am assuming having a look at where roads should be located, hospitals should be located a lot of which is by or close to the sea in Pacific islands.
NE: Yes exactly right and so the fundamental data that we are using for this website was available previously to the chief of a village called Mele in the island of Efate and because he had access to this information and he could see the impacts, and that is a real focus for this website is really showing people, because he had access to these maps following the impacts of cyclone Pam in early 2015. He then looked at how he could actually make his village more resilient in the future to climate change. So he could actually move his village up the hill so it wasn't in a low lying area which is currently looking to be inundated significantly by the year 2100. So that is the types of impact that we are looking to achieve is grass[roots] level community awareness. Right through to government awareness for the projects they are working on.
KH: And so Vanuatu is the first Pacific Island I understand are you doing some more in the future?
NE: Yes we would love to. So this followed on a project we did for Australia. So we have got the coastal risk Australia website. And then we had access to information in Vanuatu and great support from the Vanuatu government so we have made coastal risk Vanuatu available. And we hope to make some more available for other countries early in the New Year. We are in discussions at the moment.
KH: Also I find interesting is the UAV [Unmanned Aerial Vehicle] imagery captured during the response to cyclone Pam you have used some of that in this as well.
NE: Yes and many thanks to SPC the Secretariat of the Pacific Community for donating that information. We wanted to see how we could bring other types of information through that could be used for this decision making and planning. And the UAV imagery was part of that. So it was great to be able to showcase some the great data that has been collected for crisis response scenarios.
KH: There are a lot of naysayers about climate change is this kind of technology something that can help convince some of the people out there who don't believe that climate change is actually going to happen, or is a real thing?
NE: We certainly hope so all of the models that we are using are really based on empirical data so it is what the tide levels are actually showing us is happening and it is very real to the Pacific islands. They are very much in the front-line when it comes to climate change. They have got a number of low lying areas and communities located in those areas that are very much at risk of sea level rise. Not just 500 years from now but within the next generation. So we feel it is very important to communicate this and to try and show people in black and white what the impacts of climate change will be. We tend to find out that when people can actually see down to the community level down to the street and even house level what the impacts will be it is easy for them to grasp.
