2022
I had the chance to work on a project helping rural coastal villages throughout the Pacific to prepare for future climate change impacts. Each community mapped their infrastructure and prepared a plan on how to adapt to the forecasted impacts like cyclones, storm surge, flooding, drought and coastal degradation. Using Google maps, the communities plotted the impacts they had already been facing like in the map below, where rain induced flooding is represented in yellow and coastal high tide flooding in light blue. The community leaders also took scientific projections and plotted where high tide would be in 2100 as shown by the red line. Click on the embedded map to see the legend for all the features mapped for the village of Vunisavisavi. With this information, the village leadership decided that preparing their homes and community buildings for cyclone related impacts was the most important and that homes needed to be protected or moved. They chose the most vulnerable and asked Habitat for Humanity to help build new climate proof homes. The remaining homes were cyclone proofed with new roofing and straps. You can see the different houses in the embedded Street View images below. The top image shows the traditional homes and the next Street View image shows the improved climate proof homes. The last embedded tour gives you the opportunity to walk around the village and learn more about the potential impacts that they will face. This is a reminder to all of us that we all have a part to play in reducing the impacts of climate change around the world. 
Street View of Vunisavisavi coastal village with traditional homes
The new Habitat for Humanity climate proofed homes
A multimedia educational tour of Vunisavisavi village highlighting climate challenges
