Tuvalu is a nation of nine coral atolls scattered across the central Pacific, home to around 10,000 people and one of the smallest and lowest-lying countries on Earth. With a land area of just 26 square kilometres and an average elevation of barely four metres above sea level, it is one of the most remote and vulnerable nations on Earth . Under current sea level rise projections, Tuvalu faces the prospect of becoming uninhabitable within this century - not as a distant hypothetical, but as a trajectory already underway. The stakes here are not theoretical. They are existential, and they are now.
Earlier this year, a University of Sydney team travelled to Funafuti as part of a research collaboration with the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project Phase II (TCAP II) in Tuvalu, funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Dr Billy Haworth and Dr Ana Paula da Silva in the School of Geosciences led stakeholder and community consultations designed to assess the social feasibility of large-scale vertical adaptation to sea level rise (i.e., land raising/reclamation) directly with the people whose futures depend on them. Liav Meoded Stern, currently a PhD student at the Faculty of Science, joined the team as a research assistant on the coastal adaptation project, and also conducted coral reef surveys investigating the state of Funafuti's coral reef ecosystems for her research. Here, the team shares reflections from this experience.
Asking the Hard Questions
The centrepiece of the TCAP II fieldwork was a series of semi-structured interviews and a participatory workshop with residents, community leaders, government departments, and NGOs. Conversations covered sea-level rise, land reclamation, migration, and what meaningful adaptation looks like from the inside. What became clear immediately is that for Tuvaluans, climate change is not a future scenario, it is something they already navigate every day. Temperatures have risen to the point where children often can not play outside after school. Tides regularly flood roads and homes. Fish have shifted from familiar grounds, making it harder for fishing families to put food on the table. These are not projections. They are the texture of daily life in Funafuti.
Different generations spoke about climate change differently. Older community members carry decades of lived memory - they know what Tuvalu used to feel like, and they feel every shift deeply. Many spoke of fears for children growing up without the reference point of what Tuvalu once was: how the tides used to behave, how the fish used to come, how the air used to feel. Younger people had not experienced that Tuvalu, so the losses were harder to feel as losses, yet their sense of identity and attachment to the islands was no less strong. Almost universally, across generations, people expressed a deep desire to stay, to have a homeland, and to build a future in Tuvalu.
We had the chance to walk on the newly reclaimed lands, constructed as part of both TCAP I and TCAP II - solid ground built on top of what was once lagoon water, raised using geotextile bags filled with lagoon sand. It is one thing to analyse land reclamation in a desktop review; it is another to stand on it and understand what it represents to a community with no higher ground to retreat to.
Science on the Side
Alongside the TCAP II work, we spent days on the boat conducting coral reef surveys as part of Liav’s PhD research - trying to understand what gives some reefs a better chance of bouncing back after bleaching, and what that means for the coastlines and communities that depend on them. A particular highlight was connecting with Fuligafou, Tuvalu's only environmental youth NGO, who joined us for some of the surveys and introduced us to their coral nursery - a grassroots effort to restore the reefs that protect the coastline and feed the community. Their commitment, carried out with minimal resources, was inspiring.
What Comes Next
We left Funafuti with consultation data that will feed into recommendations for coastal adaptation and land raising in Tuvalu, and coral survey data that will inform conservation efforts. These findings will be presented by TCAP and UNDP at their pre-COP meeting, which will be hosted in Fiji and Tuvalu later this year - a tangible next step that connects our fieldwork to international climate action. But we also left with something harder to quantify - a renewed and deeply personal understanding of what is at stake for the people of these islands.
The people of Tuvalu are not waiting to be saved. They are restoring corals, negotiating adaptation funding, and holding onto their culture with determination. But life in Funafuti is not defined only by crisis. There is warmth, humour, strong community, and a way of living that continues alongside uncertainty. The role of research partnerships like TCAP II is to ensure that science and policy keep pace with that reality — not just the risks, but the strength, dignity, and agency that are already there.
This fieldwork was conducted as part of the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project Phase II (TCAP II) in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), supported by the University of Sydney, The Geocoastal Research Group (School of Geosciences) and Marine Science Institute.