Rising seas could put Easter Island’s iconic statues at risk by 2080: Study

Possible ways to mitigate the hazard see armouring the coastline and gathering breakwaters to relocating the monuments.

The Journal of Cultural Heritage has published a caller survey indicating that rising oversea levels could propulsion almighty seasonal waves into Easter Island’s 15 iconic moai statues, successful the latest imaginable peril to taste practice from clime change.

“Sea level emergence is real,” said Noah Paoa, pb writer of the survey published connected Wednesday and a doctoral pupil astatine the University of Hawaii astatine Manoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology. “It’s not a distant threat.”

About 50 different taste sites successful the country are besides astatine hazard from flooding.

Paoa, who is from Easter Island – a Chilean territory and volcanic land successful Polynesia known to its Indigenous radical arsenic Rapa Nui – and his colleagues built a high-resolution “digital twin” of the island’s eastbound coastline and ran machine models to simulate aboriginal question impacts nether assorted oversea level emergence scenarios. They past overlaid the results with maps of taste sites to pinpoint which places could beryllium inundated successful the coming decades.

The findings amusement waves could scope Ahu Tongariki, the largest ceremonial level connected the island, arsenic aboriginal arsenic 2080. The site, location to the 15 towering moai, draws tens of thousands of visitors each twelvemonth and is simply a cornerstone of the island’s tourism economy.

Beyond its economical value, the ahu is profoundly woven into Rapa Nui’s taste identity. It lies wrong Rapa Nui National Park, which encompasses overmuch of the land and is recognised arsenic a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The astir 900 moai statues crossed the land were built by the Rapa Nui radical betwixt the 10th and 16th centuries to honour important ancestors and chiefs.

The menace isn’t unprecedented. In 1960, the largest earthquake ever recorded – a magnitude 9.5 disconnected the seashore of Chile – sent a tsunami surging crossed the Pacific. It struck Rapa Nui and swept the already-toppled moai further inland, which damaged immoderate of their features. The monument was restored successful the 1990s.

While the survey focuses connected Rapa Nui, its conclusions echo a wider reality: Cultural practice sites worldwide are progressively endangered by rising seas. A UNESCO study published past period recovered that astir 50 World Heritage sites are highly exposed to coastal flooding.

A UNESCO spokesperson told The Associated Press quality bureau that clime alteration is the biggest menace to UNESCO’s World Heritage marine sites. “In the Mediterranean and Africa, astir three-quarters of coastal low-lying sites are present exposed to erosion and flooding owed to accelerated oversea level rise.”

Possible defences for Ahu Tongariki scope from armouring the coastline and gathering breakwaters to relocating the monuments.

Paoa hopes that the findings volition bring these conversations astir now, alternatively than aft irreversible damage. “It’s champion to look up and beryllium proactive alternatively of reactive to the imaginable threats.”