According to a recent study in the Journal of Cultural Heritage, rising sea levels may force strong seasonal waves into Easter Island’s 15 famous moai statues before the end of the century. Flooding is also a threat to about 50 other local cultural sites.
Noah Paoa, the study’s lead author and a doctorate candidate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, asserted that sea level rise is real. It’s not a far-off danger.
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Using computer models to estimate future wave impacts under several sea level rise scenarios, Paoa, who is from Easter Island, known to its Indigenous people as Rapa Nui, and his colleagues created a high-resolution digital twin of the island’s eastern shore. In order to identify which locations would be flooded in the ensuing decades, they then superimposed the results with maps of cultural sites.
According to the research, waves might arrive as early as 2080 at Ahu Tongariki, the island’s largest ceremonial platform. A major contributor to the island’s tourism economy, the location, which is home to 15 soaring moai, welcomes tens of thousands of tourists annually.
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Beyond its monetary worth, the ahu is an integral part of Rapa Nui culture. It is located inside Rapa Nui National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site that covers a large portion of the island.
To honor significant ancestors and chiefs, the Rapa Nui people constructed some 900 moai statues throughout the island between the tenth and sixteenth centuries.
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This is not a new threat. A tsunami swept across the Pacific Ocean in 1960 after the greatest known earthquake, measuring 9.5 on the Richter scale, struck off the coast of Chile. It damaged some of their features when it hit Rapa Nui and swept the already-fallen moai farther inland. In the 1990s, the monument underwent restoration.
Although the study focuses on Rapa Nui, its findings are consistent with a broader reality: rising oceans are endangering cultural heritage sites all across the world. Approximately 50 World Heritage sites are extremely vulnerable to coastal flooding, according to a UNESCO report released last month.
Relevant specialists were not immediately available for comment, according to a UNESCO representative.
Relocating the monuments and constructing breakwaters and armoring the shoreline are some potential defenses for Ahu Tongariki.
Paoa believes the results will start these discussions now, instead of after irreparable harm has been done.
He stated that rather than reacting to possible threats, it is better to plan ahead and be proactive.
