Land reclamation and climate change adaptation in the Maldives: assessing habitat changes in Magoodhoo Island (Faafu Atoll)

Abstract

For low-lying small islands, land reclamation enables development through new land for housing, infrastructure, and tourism while also functioning as an adaptation strategy to counter sea-level rise. Simultaneously, marine biodiversity delivers crucial protection ecosystem services to island communities. Focusing on the micro-scale case study of Faafu-Magoodhoo in the Republic of the Maldives, where a massive land reclamation project tripled the island’s landmass for socio-economic and environmental purposes, the paper demonstrates how efforts to create new land to protect from climate change have unexpected side effects on local ecosystems, raising crucial questions on how to monitor these changes in order to limit and compensate them. Using two years of drone-collected data, we document the major impacts of the reclamation project on coastal ecosystems, including the loss of 7.7 hectares of seagrass meadows and 2.33 hectares of coral reefs - significantly reducing the marine environment's capacity for carbon sequestration and natural coastal protection against climate stressors.

Through an interdisciplinary approach that bridges adaptation studies, human geography and coastal geomorphology, this paper reveals the often-overlooked environmental and geographical costs of land reclamation in the Maldives, highlighting the potential of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) to monitor them. The study critiques short-term, infrastructure-driven responses to sea-level rise and calls for a re-evaluation of reclamation as a sustainable adaptation measure. Furthermore, it advances actionable recommendations for policymakers and practitioners, aiming to support more ecologically informed and socially equitable adaptation pathways in the Maldives and other climate-vulnerable small island nations.