Disaster risk reduction and sustainable development for small island developing states

ABSTRACT

In contrast to continental nations, the world's 52 small island developing states (SIDS) are recognized as a collective of countries that experience disproportionate challenges for sustainable development related to their geography, small size, and physical isolation. These same states also face elevated risks for disaster incidence and consequences particularly in the realms of climate change, sea level rise, natural disasters (tropical cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes), and marine hazardous materials spills. Cyclone Winston's direct impact on Fiji in 2016 and Cyclone Pam's landfall over Vanuatu in 2015 provide case examples illustrating the special vulnerabilities of the SIDS.

Overview

Disaster risk reduction (DRR)^a has special significance for small island developing states (SIDS). SIDS is the designation for a group of more than 50 island and coastal countries and territories that are facilitated by the United Nations to establish partnerships to address common needs. Situated at sea level around the entire midsection of the globe, these states experience elevated risks for the occurrence of natural and anthropogenic disasters and their negative consequences. This heightened threat for extreme events relates to the geographic, geologic, and topographic features that distinguish island states from continental nations; and the physical remoteness that hampers access to humanitarian aid from outside sources when disaster strikes. Spatially isolated as they are, and separated from all other populations by expanses of ocean on all sides, these states have no choice but to be self-sustaining during the immediate aftermath of a disaster.

Small island developing states (SIDS)

According to the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA), the official tally of SIDS currently stands at 52 worldwide (Fig. 1). Thirty-nine of these states are United Nations member countries (Table 1). SIDS are grouped into 3 geographic clusters, each represented by a regional cooperation entity. The Africa, Indian Ocean, Mediterranean and South China Sea (AIMS) region, facilitated by the Indian Ocean Commission, has 9 states of which 8 are United Nations members. The Caribbean region, represented by the Caribbean Community, includes 24 states (16 are United Nations members). The Pacific region, coordinated by the Pacific Islands Forum, consists of 20 states with 15 United Nations members. Across all 3 regions, most SIDS are also members of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS).

Figure 1.

Small island developing states (SIDS). Source: World Meteorological Organization. https://www.wmo.int/sids/.

Table 1.

Small island developing states (SIDS).

Africa Indian Ocean Mediterranean and South China Sea (AIMS) Region Coordinating entity: Indian Ocean Commission
United Nations members		Non-members
Cabo Verde	Mauritius	Bahrain
Comoros	Sao Tomé and Principe
Guinea-Bissau	Seychelles
Maldives	Singapore
Caribbean Region Coordinating entity: Caribbean Community
United Nations members		Non-members
Antigua and BarbudaBahamasBarbadosBelizeCubaDominicaDominican RepublicGrenada	GuyanaHaitiJamaicaSaint Kitts and NevisSaint LuciaSaint Vincent and GrenadinesSurinameTrinidad and Tobago	AnguillaArubaBritish Virgin IslandsMontserratNetherlands AntillesPuerto RicoUnited States Virgin Islands
Pacific Region Coordinating entity: Pacific Islands Forum
United Nations members		Non-members
Cook IslandsFederated States of Micronesia FijiKiribatiMarshall IslandsNauruNiuePalau	Papua New GuineaSamoaSolomon IslandsTimor-LesteTongaTuvaluVanuatu	American SamoaFrench PolynesiaGuamNew CaledoniaNorthern Mariana Islands

The official international recognition of SIDS as a widely-dispersed group of island states that share disproportionate challenges for sustainable development^b and heightened vulnerabilities for natural and environmental disasters, occurred during the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This landmark meeting was attended by representatives of 172 nations and is commonly referenced as the “Rio Earth Summit.”

Dating from the 1992 Summit, where the moniker, “small island developing states (SIDS)” was introduced, the United Nations has been keenly cognizant of the susceptibility of SIDS to natural disasters. Yet even for SIDS, sudden onset disasters are low frequency, high impact events and most SIDS have limited human and economic resources to devote to emergency management and community preparedness activities. Nevertheless, the United Nations has elevated DRR to high priority status for SIDS by dexterously interweaving disaster preparedness into the larger fabric of sustainable development. Throughout a series of United Nations conferences, SIDS have been highlighted as “special cases,” island countries that confront daunting barriers as they strive to meet their sustainable development goals. A chronological listing of these multinational meetings is provided in Table 2, serving to benchmark the progress that has been achieved since the Rio Earth Summit. The steadfast support for the SIDS on the part of the United Nations is clearly evident and well chronicled in the outcome documents from these conferences.

Table 2.

Chronology of sustainable development and disaster risk reduction milestones for small island developing states (SIDS).

1992	Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit	The first official international recognition of the small island developing states (SIDS) occurred at the landmark United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED). Also known as the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the conference drew participants from 172 nations during June 3–14, 1992.
1994	BPOA	Barbados Program of Action (BPOA), adopted at the Global Conference on the Sustainable Development of SIDS, defined 14 sustainable development priorities for SIDS. The top-listed priorities are highly relevant to DRR: climate change, sea level rise, and natural and environmental disasters.
1999	BPOA +5	The Barbados Program of Action +5 (BPOA +5) reviewed progress and set the stage for future implementation of the BPOA. Once again, the top priorities for implementation were climate change, natural and environmental disasters, and climate variability.
2001	UN-OHRLLS	The United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS) was created to represent 3 groups of nations including the SIDS.
2002	JPOI	The Johannesburg Plan of Implementation (JPOI), based on the World Summit on Sustainable Development, indicated that SIDS nations were leading most nations in the adoption and implementation of sustainable development policies and initiatives yet were among the states that were most vulnerable to the consequences of the actions of other nations.
2005	MSI and BPOA +10	The Mauritius Strategy for the Implementation (MSI) of the Barbados Program of Action (BPOA) was developed as an outcome of the high-level Mauritius International Meeting. The focus was the further implementation of the BPOA on the occasion of the 10th anniversary (“BPOA +10”). To the BPAO's original set of 14 sustainable development priorities, 5 more were added including health.
2010	MSI +5	The United Nations General Assembly conducted a 5-year review of the Mauritius Strategy for the Implementation of the Barbados Program of Action for the Sustainable Development of SIDS (MSI +5). Note that the 5-year review of the MSI coincided with the 15th anniversary of the BPOA (“BPOA +15”).
2012	The Future We Want	On the 20th anniversary of the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit, the United Nations released an “outcome document” detailing (and titled) “The Future We Want.” Paragraphs 178 – 180 focused on SIDS. Paragraph 178 has text that is particularly related to DRR as it defined SIDS as “a special case for sustainable development in view of their unique and particular vulnerabilities, including their small size, remoteness, narrow resource and export base, and exposure to global environmental challenges and external economic shocks, including to a large range of impacts from climate change and potentially more frequent and intense natural disasters.”
2014	SAMOA Pathway	The Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States was held in Apia, Samoa, September 1–4, 2014. One of the primary outcomes was the adoption of an aptly-named document, the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action (SAMOA) Pathway. The conference and the SAMOA Pathway document highlighted the need to create durable partnerships. Hundreds of partnerships were officially registered; each partnership addressed priority areas that included several that pertain directly to DRR: climate change and disaster risk management as well as health and economic development.
2015	Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030	The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 was adopted at the Third UN World Conference in Sendai, Japan, on March 18, 2015. The Sendai Framework is the pivotal guidance document for global DRR and DRM for the 15-year period, 2015–2030. The Framework brings focused international consensus to bear on disaster prevention, mitigation, and preparedness. Item 8 from the preamble to the Framework highlights the fact that “international, regional, subregional and transboundary cooperation [is] pivotal in supporting the efforts of states…to reduce disaster risk.” Item 8 further identifies states with heightened vulnerability to disasters: “Developing countries, in particular the least developed countries, small island developing states,…need special attention and support to augment domestic resources and capabilities through bilateral and multilateral channels…”
2015	Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2015–2030	On September 25, 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution entitled, “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.” The agenda promoted the 17 “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) and 169 specific “targets” for the period 2015–2030. The SDGs update and advance the work of the predecessor Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that had been introduced in the year 2000 (hence, the name) to provide guidance for the period 2000–2015. The SDGs essentially represent the master plan for sustainable development and include several goals that are particularly important for the SIDS. These include: SDG Goal 13: Climate Action: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. SIDS-specific wording (Goal 13.3b): Promote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change-related planning and management in least developed countries and small island developing states, including focusing on women, youth and local and marginalized communities. SDG Goal 14: Life Below Water: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development. SIDS-specific wording (Goal 14.7): By 2030, increase the economic benefits to small island developing states and least developed countries from the sustainable use of marine resources, including through sustainable management of fisheries, aquaculture and tourism. SIDS-specific wording (Goal 14.7a): Increase scientific knowledge, develop research capacity and transfer marine technology, taking into account the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission Criteria and Guidelines on the Transfer of Marine Technology, in order to improve ocean health and to enhance the contribution of marine biodiversity to the development of developing countries, in particular small island developing states and least developed countries
2015	SIDS Partnership Framework	As a direct extension of the SAMOA Pathway, in December 2015, the United Nations established the Small Island Developing States (SIDS) Partnership Framework “to monitor and ensure the full implementation of pledges and commitments through partnerships for small island developing states.”

As a further integration of the work of the United Nations, the year 2015 was noteworthy for the near-simultaneous release of 1) the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015–2030 (http://www.unisdr.org/we/coordinate/sendai-framework) and 2) “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld). The Sendai conference was coordinated by the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR).^c

The sustainable development agenda consists of 17 goals slated for accomplishment during the 15-year period, 2015–2030. The sustainable development goals (SDGs) were adopted in September 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly (http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/RES/70/1&Lang=E). The SDGs succeed the predecessor group of 8 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) that guided international efforts for the period 2000–2015. The Division for Sustainable Development (DSD) provides leadership in promoting and coordinating implementation of the sustainable development agenda for the United Nations. DSD resides administratively within the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA). The United Nations has created an extensive online “Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform” (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org) that includes a webpage dedicated to SIDS (https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/topics/sids).

The crosswalk between the UNISDR's DRR strategies (the Sendai Framework) and the SDGs has particular importance for vulnerable island states.

SIDS and the disaster risk landscape

For SIDS, the disaster risk landscape is shaped by several defining features of these island states: 1) small size and correspondingly limited resources; 2) elevated disaster frequency and severity based on geography (tropical latitude and longitude), geophysics (seismicity, volcanic activity, proximity to tectonic plate boundaries), and topography (sea level elevation, 360° coastal perimeter, steep terrain on some islands); and 3) physical isolation from other states - precisely because SIDS are individual islands or clusters of islands. Interacting with these inherent properties of island states, disaster threats for SIDS are exacerbated by climate change and sea level rise.

United Nations perspective

Reinforcing the points above, the webpage for the Third International Conference on Small Island Developing States that was held in Apia, Samoa on September 1–4, 2014, succinctly summarizes what differentiates SIDS from continental nations in terms of both sustainable development and DRR (http://www.sids2014.org/index.php?menu=1496):

“Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have their own peculiar vulnerabilities and characteristics, so the difficulties they face in the pursuit of sustainable development are particularly severe and complex: small size, isolation, climate change and sea-level rise, and natural and environmental disasters.”

For SIDS, the phenomena of natural disaster vulnerability, climate change, and rising ocean levels act synergistically to create disproportionate risks for island states. Dispersed broadly throughout the oceans of the world, the SIDS act inadvertently as an early warning network for detecting the initial signs of environmental variability. The insidious global threats of climate change are observed first and most acutely in the SIDS. Given these realities, DRR and disaster risk management (DRM) strategies must be tailored to the unique constellation of disaster hazards and vulnerabilities that characterize small island nations.

Size and isolation

Small size and geographic remoteness are definitional characteristics of SIDS, placing these states at severe economic disadvantage due to compounding factors: 1) high costs for all essential services and infrastructure (including energy, transportation, health care, communication, construction, technology), 2) limited resource base, 3) economic dependence on erratic external markets and cyclical tourism, and 4) small populations. Within this context, DRR activities tend to be lacking, underfunded, and understaffed with trained professionals.

The United Nations Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States (UN-OHRLLS) produced the publication, “Small Island Developing States: Small Islands Big(ger) Stakes,” that analyzed the “common challenges faced by SIDS” in relation to sustainable development.¹ Particularly on point for DRR, this position paper describes SIDS as having “limited resilience for natural disasters” that pose threats to their “fragile natural environments.”

Climate change and sea level rise

Multiple SIDS face the near-term existential threat of progressive submersion as the ocean rises. The terse headline on a New York Times column makes this point plainly, “The Marshall Islands are Disappearing,” (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/12/02/world/The-Marshall-Islands-Are-Disappearing.html?_r=0). The Polynesian nation of Tuvalu, appears on satellite imagery as a bauble necklace of 9 coral atolls and reef islands, that together occupy a mere 10 square miles of land emerging just above the breakers (Fig. 2). For the Maldives, the average altitude for the entire nation is just 1.5 m so NASA's predicted 1 m minimum sea level rise during the remainder of the 21^st Century (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4700) will scuttle most of the nation's surface area. Even for those SIDS with more landmass, much of the agriculture and infrastructure is “coastal-concentrated” and endangered by rising ocean waters.

Figure 2.

NASA satellite image of the small island developing state of Tuvalu. Source: http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/SearchPhotos/photo.pl?mission=ISS006androll=Eandframe=05840.

Natural disasters

The UN-OHRLLS notes that SIDS have particular vulnerabilities to natural disasters (e.g. storm surges, landslides, droughts) and to such anthropogenic disasters as marine oil spills. When a disaster strikes, ecological impacts tend to be more extreme for island nations. The geographic isolation of SIDS, compounded by the necessity to import supplies, significantly boosts the economic costs of disaster recovery.

In response to the SIDS trifecta of 1) higher risks for disaster occurrence, 2) increased severity of disaster impacts, and 3) greater resource losses, the United Nations advises the following actions that span all phases of DRR and DRM:¹

• increasing capabilities for hazard prediction, detection, and surveillance

• empowering DRR and disaster mitigation initiatives through the UNISDR

• prioritizing public education and citizen involvement in DRR activities

• improving and expanding the range of warning systems

• strengthening DRM frameworks within and across SIDS

• supporting “inter-sectoral partnerships”

• building disaster response capacities.

The interaction of climate change and disasters

Climate change and global warming are already increasing the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones and El Niño events. The 2015/2016 El Niño has spawned wide-ranging climatic derivatives worldwide that include direct effects on SIDS nations. A powerful case in point was the total inundation of several of the southern Bahamas islands during Hurricane Joaquín in 2015. Hovering in a near-stationary path for more than 2 days, Joaquín's rains and storm surge caused devastating impacts and flooding for Acklins Island, Crooked Island, Long Island, Rum Cay, and San Salvador Island (Fig. 3) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Joaquin).

Figure 3.

Hurricane Joaquín hovering over the southern Bahamas Islands, October 1, 2015. Caption: Hurricane Joaquín as seen by NOAA's GOES-13 satellite at 19:00 UTC on October 1, 2015. At the time of this image, Joaquín was a Category 4 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph (215 kph). Source: http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/MediaDetail2.php?MediaID=1782&MediaTypeID=1.

Disaster events create compounding economic and environmental consequences. Climate change has the potential to damage fragile coral reefs (many SIDS islands are coral atolls) and to transform island ecosystems on which SIDS residents depend. Concurrently, rising ocean temperatures are displacing the world's major fishing areas, affecting one of the most important livelihoods for many coastal dwellers.

DRR principles applied to SIDS

Disaster self-sufficiency

A fundamental DRR principle is that of preparing the community to achieve self-sufficiency throughout the disaster impact and immediate post-impact phases. Globally, many nations are making strides toward achieving this objective. However, in contrast to continental nations, the SIDS have no other choice but to be self-sustaining when disaster strikes. Surrounded by ocean on all sides, the SIDS are physically beyond the reach of humanitarian relief personnel and material resources during disaster impact and early aftermath. Furthermore, many of the SIDS are themselves composed of dozens-to-hundreds of separate islands (e.g., the nation of Bahamas has more than 700 islands), adding to the complexity of both disaster preparedness and response.

Disaster warnings

SIDS emergency managers will receive notification of impending disaster threats via international disaster alert networks – for those events where it is possible to provide advance notice. Warnings are more complicated for those SIDS that have many inhabited islands where citizens or tourists must be rapidly informed and activated.

As key examples, tropical cyclones frequently can be detected several days prior to the moment of landfall or closest approach. Caribbean SIDS nations receive storm updates relayed from the Miami-based National Hurricane Center. Pacific jurisdictions receive information from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Hawaii. Depending upon the point of origin, tsunami warnings can be issued minutes to hours before the arrival of the waves. Marine spills, involving petroleum or other hazardous materials, spread at a pace that typically allows SIDS to be warned hours to days prior to arrival of the contaminants along their coastlines.

Evacuation

The proven prevention/mitigation strategy of evacuating vulnerable human populations away from low-lying coastal points of potential impact to higher, safer inland terrain is a mainstay of DRM for continental nations. The concept is to separate human populations from exposure to disaster hazards through timely relocation. In the case of island-based populations, the prospect of evacuating citizens is difficult, severely limited, or frankly impossible even for disaster events that provide a warning period.

Sheltering

Unable to leave the island, citizens on some of the larger SIDS may be able to move a limited distance away from the coastline but for other island nations this is not possible. Therefore, sheltering in fortified structures is the remaining option. Sheltering has been accomplished successfully, with minimal loss of life, during recent strong typhoons and cyclones (see the Cyclone Pam and Cyclone Winston case examples). In other instances, pre-impact sheltering is impossible due to lack of timely warning, or inadvisable due to lack of disaster-resistant structures. This was the case for the 2 deadliest extreme events of the current century, the 2010 Haiti earthquake (Haiti is a Caribbean SIDS nation) and the 2004 Southeast Asia tsunami (multiple SIDS nations were impacted).

Risk communications

The defining attributes of SIDS require that each State prioritize emergency communications as a key component of disaster planning. Communications are critical for coordinating the activities of frontline response personnel and informing the general public about disaster risks, protective actions to take, and available resources.

Regional alliances

The ability of SIDS to create and strengthen alliances among regional states is essential.

Case Example 1: Cyclone Winston impacting Fiji, February 2016

Cyclone Winston provides a timely illustration of disaster impacts for SIDS nations, their inhabitants, and their emergency response professionals (Figs. 4–6). On February 20, 2016, Cyclone Winston made landfall across portions of the Republic of Fiji (population: 900,000), a South Pacific archipelago composed of more than 330 islands. The Joint Typhoon Warning Center estimated the storm's peak sustained one-minute wind speeds at 285 kph (180 mph) as it passed over Fiji's third largest island, Vanua Levu. The storm was graded as a Category 5-equivalent tropical cyclone on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane rating scale. Based on the high wind speeds and the very low central pressures, Cyclone Winston was potentially the strongest windstorm to impact Fiji in recorded history and one of the most powerful tropical storms ever to form in the South Pacific east of Australia, rivaling or surpassing 2002 Cyclone Zoe and 2015 Cyclone Pam.²

Figure 4.

Cyclone Winston impacting the Republic of Fiji, February 20, 2016. Caption: The Aqua satellite captured this picture of Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston at 01:30 UTC on 20 February 2016, during peak intensity and striking Fiji. Winston becomes the strongest storm to make landfall over Fiji in history. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Winston#/media/File:Winston_2016-02-20_0130Z_(cropped).jpg.

Figure 5.

Tropical Cyclone Winston impacting Fiji, February 20, 2016. Source: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/event-tracker/tropical-cyclone-winston-causes-devastation-fiji-tropical-paradise. Caption: Tropical Cyclone Winston sprawled across the Fiji Islands on February 20, 2016. This infrared view of the storm from the NOAA-NASA Suomi satellite shows warm surfaces (such as the open ocean at image upper right) in shades of blue with progressively colder temperatures (such as the tops of Winston's towering thunderstorm clouds) in darkest red. Image by Dan Pisut, NOAA Environmental Visualization Lab.

Figure 6.

Cyclone Winston storm trajectory looping around the Republic of Fiji, February 7, 2016 – March 3, 2016. Caption: Created by Keith Edkins using Wikipedia:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Tracks. The background image is from NASA. Tracking data is from NOAA. Track map of Severe Tropical Cyclone Winston of the 2015–16 South Pacific cyclone season and the 2015–16 Australian region cyclone season. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Winston#/media/File:Winston_2016_track.png.

Storm intensification in the vicinity of Fiji was enhanced by the presence of extremely warm sea surface temperatures in the South Pacific, close to the intersection of the equator and the International Date Line. These super-heated ocean waters, extending to great depths, were a product of the lingering 2015/2016 El Niño conditions that rivaled the 1997/1998 “climate event of the century”.^3,4 Atmospheric scientists computed a key indicator of Winston's intensification potential and indeed, the storm's Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential (TCHP) was estimated at 75 kJ/cm², a very high value.⁵ According to Climate.gov,⁶ “the storm explosively strengthened under very conducive atmospheric and oceanic conditions.” Wind shear (changing of wind speed and/or direction with height in the atmosphere) was weak enough to not pose a challenge to the storm's organization, while sea surface temperatures were around 88°F (31°C). In addition to the extreme wind hazards associated with Winston, storm surge also posed an exceptional threat.⁵ Some of Fiji's larger islands are of volcanic origin with mountainous contours but many smaller islands are coral atolls that barely rise above the sea surface. In fact, the relentless sea level rise has already displaced some Fijians who had been dwelling along low-lying coastlines that have eroded and submerged. During the impact phase of Cyclone Winston, the storm surge easily swept over and inundated entire small Fijian islands.

The consequences of Cyclone Winston were devastating throughout the small island Republic of Fiji.⁷ Electrical power was initially lost for 80 percent of the Republic's 900,000 residents and communications to the hardest-hit islands were interrupted for days. Forty percent of the Republic's population (350,000 residents) was moderately to severely affected, including 120,000 children. More than one-quarter million residents required water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) assistance and replenishment of basic needs. With 9,000 homes destroyed and 17,000 severely damaged, an estimated 131,000 citizens required immediate sheltering. All Fiji schools were closed for at least a week. The Cyclone Winston death toll in Fiji was estimated at 44 persons killed in the storm.

Case Example 2: Earthquake, Tsunami, Volcano, and Cyclone Pam Impacting Vanuatu, February/March, 2015

Just past midnight on February 20, 2015, a 6.4M earthquake (http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/eventpage/usc000trf9#general_region) struck the 80-island nation of Vanuatu (2013 population: 253,000). >The epicenter was located 145 km north of the capital of Port Vila and just 6 km south of Ambrym Island. Considering the highly-active “seismotectonics” of the eastern margin of the Australia Plate, this event was not at all unusual. In fact, during 2015, stronger earthquakes occurred in Vanuatu both before (6.8M, January 24, 2015) and after (7.1M, October 21, 2015) the ground-shaking event in February.

What made the February earthquake noteworthy was the temporal concentration of a series of natural disaster events within the span of several weeks: earthquake, tsunami, volcano, and cyclone. The February earthquake itself set off a small tsunami that affected nearby Vanuatu islands. The following day, February 21, 2015, the twin-crater Ambryn volcano experienced a powerful eruption that opened a new vent in the caldera and ejected ash upward to altitudes of 8,000 feet while producing the first observable lava flow since 1989.⁸ Just several weeks later, Vanuatu sustained widespread catastrophic damage as the island chain was directly impacted by Cyclone Pam, the worst tropical cyclone in the state's recorded history. Cyclone Pam was the strongest storm in the Southern Hemisphere in 2015, bringing sustained one-minute wind speeds of 270 kph (165 mph) as it passed directly over Vanuatu on March 13, 2015.⁹ Moreover, Cyclone Pam was not an isolated storm; multiple tropical cyclone systems were concurrently threatening SIDS in the South Pacific over a period of weeks (Figs. 7 and 8).

Figure 7.

Cyclone Pam over Vanuatu, March 11, 2015. Source: NOAA / NASA / RAMMB / CIRA.

Figure 8.

Four tropical cyclones active simultaneously in the South Pacific at the time of Cyclone Pam in March 2015. Source: earth.nullschool.net.

The 2015 Vanuatu combination disaster—earthquake, tsunami, volcano, and Cyclone Pam—destroyed 70–80 percent of crops and emergency food supplies in the affected areas (http://www.unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/tropical-cyclone-pam-one-year) and damaged or destroyed 90 percent of the physical structures in the island nation (http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/OCHA_VUT_TCPam_Sitrep1_20150310.pdf).

Disaster mental health considerations

Prior to the 2015 multiple-disaster sequence, Vanuatu had limited health services with one of the lowest health worker to population ratios in the Pacific Region. Despite its ferocity, Cyclone Pam was blamed for just 15 fatalities and limited numbers of serious injuries. However, the storm created considerable psychological distress. Unfortunately, the health care worker shortage was most pronounced in the mental health sector where Vanuatu had an estimated mental health treatment gap of 99.99% and the pre-disaster mental health service environment was dire (http://mhpss.net/?get=45/WHOproMIND-Profile-Vanuatu-23.10.2013.pdf).

While there have been no published studies on the specific mental health consequences of the Vanuatu disaster, immediately following disasters, psychopathology is generally elevated, specifically among anxiety disorders (including post-traumatic stress disorder), substance abuse disorders, and complicated grief. On a population level, disaster-associated distress may also manifest in increases in sleep disruption and stress-related psychosomatic and psychological symptoms. Perhaps not surprisingly, mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) were largely absent from formal response efforts following Cyclone Pam. This was evident in the detailed OCHA's situation report that summarized Vanuatu's current needs, existing response, and gaps for each of a series of humanitarian response “clusters”; MHPSS response was not mentioned (http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/OCHA_VUT_TCPam_Sitrep1_20150310.pdf).

Recent analyses exploring the impact of anthropogenic climate change in Pacific Island countries, including Vanuatu, found that trauma and psychosocial distress related to extreme weather events were identified as high priority health risks.¹⁰ These investigators also warned that the mental health consequences of disasters and disaster-associated forced migration could not be overstated.¹¹

Disaster resilience

Disasters also provide a unique opportunity for populations to come together, often with national and global support, to rebuild a stronger and more equitable health system. Just weeks after the Vanuatu disaster, the WHO Humanitarian Coordinator noted that three-quarters of the affected population had independently initiated housing repairs and specifically that “Pacific Islanders are extremely resilient and are keen to get on with the task of rebuilding…” (http://www.unocha.org/top-stories/all-stories/tropical-cyclone-pam-one-year). With the support of the international community, Vanuatu is further developing their early warning system that has been credited with drastically limiting the death toll in 2015 (http://reliefweb.int/report/fiji/pacific-resilience-face-disaster). Current DRR activities are focusing on vulnerable populations and school-based disaster preparedness (http://reliefweb.int/report/world/we-need-talk-about-cyclones).

Conclusion

SIDS are regarded as “special cases” in terms of disaster vulnerability and challenges to achieving sustainable development. Supported by the United Nations, SIDS also play a special role on the cutting edge of preparedness, DRR, and DRM for the triple threats of natural disasters, climate change, and sea level rise. The ability of SIDS to form robust alliances among counterpart island nations is an increasingly urgent imperative. Because SIDS experience some of the most severe consequences of escalating global anthropogenic risks, these island states must be prioritized for infusion of international support to build DRR capabilities and disaster resilience.

Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest

No potential conflicts of interest were disclosed.