MAJURO – A new study shows that 58 years after a typhoon devastated Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands causing significant loss of land, the land area of this low-lying atoll is now larger.
The study, by two University of Auckland researchers, is the second one on the Marshall Islands to show that a majority of islands studied remain stable in size or are growing.
“It’s really remarkable just how active reef islands are,” said study co-author Dr Murray Ford.
“The islands are constantly changing in response to processes on the reefs surrounding them.”
Typhoon Ophelia struck Jaluit on January 7, 1958, causing 16 deaths and the loss of about half a square kilometre of land, mostly on the northeastern side of the atoll. The study of Jaluit was recently published in the US-based publication, Geology.
Researchers Dr Ford and Dr Paul Kench used aerial photography from before the typhoon and from 2006 and 2010 to compare the size of shorelines, which allowed them to “track the impacts of the typhoon and the multi-decadal recovery of islands”.
The typhoon caused Jaluit’s land area to decline from 9.95 square kilometres before Ophelia to 9.45 square kilometres.
“Between 1976 and 2006, 73 of 87 islands increased in size, with the total landmass exceeding the pre-typhoon area (10.25 square kilometres),” they reported. Despite serious typhoon-caused erosion and sea-level rise over the years, “islands have persisted and grown.”
Another report that is soon to be published focuses on six other atolls and two reef islands in the Marshall Islands and shows that the size of the majority of these islands has remained stable or grown. In the study not yet published, 40 per cent of the islands showed shoreline growth, 43 percent stayed the same, and only 17 per cent showed erosion.
