Previsiones del impacto sobre cambio climático. Archipiélago de San Blas (Panamá)

Abstract

The San Blas Archipelago, located in the Caribbean Sea, off the coast of Panama, is one of the most threatened inhabited places on Earth due to the inexorable rise in the mean sea level. It is the home of the ancestral indigenous Kuna community, which inhabits 45 of the 365 islands that make up the archipelago. This article analyses the impact of the mean sea level rise on these islands, concluding that it supposes a very serious threat to the habitat of this population, which could even disappear by the end of this century. Specifically, in the IPCC RCP4.5 scenario of moderate emissions, this rise would reach 55 cm by 2090 (with a 50% probability of being exceeded) or even 75 cm (if this probability were reduced to 10%). It is proposed to carry out specific studies on the coastal dynamics in order to find a reasonable alternative to this problem always provided that it can be agreed with the Kuna population