The Maldives are not just a prime destination for global tourism, which is sometimes invasive and wasteful. They are, above all, a marvelous and precious ecosystem made up of 1.192 coral islands, 187 of which are inhabited by approximately half a million people.
Today this archipelago is at risk, and this isn't just any old catastrophic warning, not only because of the environmental damage it suffers practically daily, but also because scientists predict the Maldives will be completely uninhabitable by 2050. For very specific reasons, there's still time (but the will and financial resources are also needed) to avert catastrophe. This is also demonstrated by a highly promising high-tech project that could prevent catastrophe.
The main scientifically proven reasons why the Maldives risks becoming uninhabited by 2050 are:
Global warming is causing glaciers to melt, and the water accumulating in the Indian Ocean threatens to submerge the atolls of the Maldives. Eighty percent of the islands that make up the archipelago are less than one meter above sea level, making them extremely vulnerable.
The higher the water rises, the faster coastal erosion accelerates. This makes the Maldives islands less stable and therefore, effectively, uninhabitable.
Coral reefs play a fundamental role in protecting islands, but they are constantly deteriorating, and as they disappear, they expose atolls to the risk of being overwhelmed.
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The decline of mangrove forests
Mangroves also play a fundamental protective role, and these forests too are being reduced due to rising sea levels.
The gigantic and devastating tourism industry in the Maldives, which brings as many as two million people a year to these fragile and compromised islands, also causes a daily and unsustainable production of all kinds of waste. This worsens the situation, as evidenced by the most sensational case: the island of Maafushi, which has now become a gigantic open-air landfill.
The project to save the Maldives
The only project currently being tested that could guarantee the survival of the Maldives as inhabited islands is called Growing Islands, It's a plan also being supported by Invena, a high-tech company based in Malé, the capital of the Maldives. In practice, a constant monitoring system allows for the identification, in real time, of erosion points on the islands, including those predicted for the future. And in these areas, interventions are carried out to accumulate sandbanks, regardless of winds and wave direction, often swept away by currents in just a few weeks. This helps rebuild beaches, elevate coastlines, and protect the livability of the Maldives islands.
The project has a good chance of success, at least on paper, even if the unknowns are enormous, because it is supported by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), by the National Geographic Society, by the Sri Lankan engineering company Sanken, and by the same builders and managers of the resorts who, If the Maldives were to become uninhabitable, they too would suffer the damage of a catastrophe, first human and then environmental.
Read also:
- Maldives at risk from garbage island growing by one square meter a day
- Great Pacific Garbage: How plastic is destroying marine ecosystems
- Plastic in the sea: soon we will have more waste than fish
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