Ground Water Impacts of Climate Change on Coastal Developing Countries

A significant portion of the world’s developing nations and their populations live under an existing threat of coastal flooding and inundation.  At the same time, these populations rely almost exclusively on coastal resources (including groundwater) for their livelihoods; either directly from the oceans, or as the result of trading and transportation.  Under many IPCC scenarios, sea level rise and intensification of tropical depressions is likely to further stress the already threatened populations. While we typically consider sea level rise to be the most pressing threat to coastal water resources and sea water intrusion, the threats imposed by climate change are likely to be much more immediate and catastrophic. As seen in the South Asian tsunami of 2004, coastal inundation immediately resulted in the destruction of coastal ground water supplies and systems.

While developed nations have the luxury of deep wells and engineering sanitary seals, many coastal developing nations rely upon shallow, hand-dug wells that can provide a direct pathway for seawater injection directly into the aquifers.  These effects are long-term, and result in a massive disruption of the lifestyles and economies of the coastal populations.  In this talk, observations from the 2004 tsunami will be used to suggest likely future scenarios of disruption of coastal groundwater supplies as well as to define preventative and emergency strategies that need to be developed for coastal developing nations as climate changes.