Rethinking atoll futures: local resilience to global challenges
Atoll islands aren’t doomed by sea-level rise; they naturally build upward through sediment accretion. Their survival depends on healthy reefs, active sediment flow, and vegetated land. Damage to reefs and disrupted processes threaten stability, so both global climate action and local restoration are essential.
Subject Tags
- Climate resilience
- Conservation Planning
- Nature-based solutions
Abstract
Atoll islands are often perceived as inevitably lost due to rising sea levels. However, unlike other islands, atoll islands are dynamic landforms that have evolved, at least historically, to vertically accrete at a pace commensurate with changing sea levels. Rather than atoll islands’ low elevation per se, the impairment of natural accretion processes is jeopardising their persistence. While global marine impacts are deteriorating coral reefs, local impacts also significantly affect accretion, together potentially tipping the scales toward atoll island erosion. Maintaining atoll island accretion requires intact sediment generation on coral reefs, unobstructed sediment transport from reef to island, and available vegetated deposition sites on the island. Ensuring the persistence of atoll islands must include global greenhouse gas emission reduction and local restoration of accretion processes.
Citation
Steibl, S., Kench, P.S., Young, H.S., Wegmann, A.S., Holmes, N.D., Bunbury, N., Teavai-Murphy, T.H., Davies, N., Murphy, F. and Russell, J.C., 2024. Rethinking atoll futures: local resilience to global challenges. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 39(3), pp.258-266. https://doilorg/10.1016/j.tree.2023.11.004
TNC Authors
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Alex S. Wegmann
Lead Scientist, Island Resilience, California
The Nature Conservancy
Email: alex.wegmann@tnc.org -
Nick D. Holmes
Associate Director, Oceans Program, California
The Nature Conservancy
Email: nick.holmes@tnc.org