Shishmaref

Sources

Similar Towns

• Newtok, Alaska is also being relocated due to rising sea levels, permafrost melting, and erosion.
• Towns like Newtok and Shishmaref are becoming increasingly common worldwide

Impact

• Environmental Impact: accelerating coastal erosion, permafrost melting
• Animal and Ecosystem Impact: declining food from shifting marine life habitat
• Human Impact: risk of destruction

In Shishmaref, the melting permafrost and coastal erosion from rising sea levels put many properties at risk. Warming oceans have caused marine animals to not live as near and has lessened food supply for Shishmaref.

Solutions

• Relocation: coastal buildings relocated
• Seawalls
• Research

All of the above have been attempts to help Shishmaref. Coastal buildings are relocated and seawalls have been erected but this can be costly. Research is not an immediate fix as well.

Sources

• Marino, Elizabeth. Fierce Climate, Sacred Ground: An Ethnography of Climate Change in Shishmaref, Alaska. University of Alaska Press, 2015.
• Marino, Elizabeth, and Heather Lazrus. "Migration or Forced Displacement?: The Complex Choices of Climate Change and Disaster Migrants in Shishmaref, Alaska and Nanumea, Tuvalu." Human Organization, vol. 74, no. 4, 2015, pp. 341–350.
• Sutter, J. D. (2017, March 29). Shishmaref, Alaska: The town fighting to survive as it washes away. CNN. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/29/us/sutter-shishmaref-esau-tragedy/index.html