Kiribati - Geography

Geography

Kiribati consists of about 32 atolls and one solitary island (Banaba), extending into both the eastern and western hemispheres. The groups of islands are:

• Banaba: an isolated island between Nauru and the Gilbert Islands
• Gilbert Islands: 16 atolls located some 1,500 kilometres (932 mi) north of Fiji
• Phoenix Islands: 8 atolls and coral islands located some 1,800 kilometres (1,118 mi) southeast of the Gilberts
• Line Islands: 8 atolls and one reef, located about 3,300 kilometres (2,051 mi) east of the Gilberts

Banaba (or Ocean Island) is a raised-coral island which was once a rich source of phosphates, but it was mostly mined out before independence. The rest of the land in Kiribati consists of the sand and reef rock islets of atolls or coral islands which rise only one or two metres above sea level.

The soil is thin and calcareous, making agriculture very difficult.

Kiritimati (Christmas Island) in the Line Islands is the world's largest atoll. Based on a 1995 realignment of the International Date Line, Kiribati is now the easternmost country in the world, and the Line Islands are the first area to enter into a new year, including year 2000. For that reason, Caroline Island has been renamed Millennium Island. The majority of Kiribati, including the capital, is not first, for example New Zealand (UTC+13 in January) has an earlier new year.

According to the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (previously South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP)), two small uninhabited Kiribati islets, Tebua Tarawa and Abanuea, disappeared underwater in 1999. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that sea levels will rise by about half a metre (20 in) by 2100 due to global warming and a further rise would be inevitable. It is thus likely that within a century the nation's arable land will become subject to increased soil salination and will be largely submerged.

However, sea-level rise may not necessarily mean Kiribati will be inundated. Paul Kench at the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Arthur Webb at the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji released a study in 2010 on the dynamic response of reef islands to sea level rise in the central Pacific. Kiribati was mentioned in the study, and Webb and Kench found that the three major urbanised islands in Kiribati - Betio, Bairiki and Nanikai - increased by 30 per cent (36 hectares), 16.3 per cent (5.8 hectares) and 12.5 per cent (0.8 hectares), respectively.

The Kiribati Adaptation Program (KAP) is a US $5.5 million initiative that was originally enacted by the national government of Kiribati with the support of the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the World Bank, the United Nations Development Program, and the Japanese Government. Australia later joined the coalition, donating US $1.5 million to the effort. The program aims to take place over 6 years, supporting measures that reduce Kiribati’s vulnerability to the effects of climate change and sea level rise by raising awareness of climate change, assessing and protecting available water resources, and managing inundation. At the start of the Adaptation Program, representatives from each of the inhabited atolls identified key climatic changes that had taken place over the past 20–40 years, and proposed coping mechanisms to deal with these changes under four categories of urgency of need. The program is now focusing on the country’s most vulnerable sectors in the most highly populated areas. Initiatives include improving water supply management in and around Tarawa; coastal management protection measures such as mangrove re-plantation and protection of public infrastructure; strengthening laws to reduce coastal erosion; and population settlement planning to reduce personal risks.

Kiribati is the only country in all four hemispheres.