Despite their relatively small landmass – only 2% of the earth’s surface (Ratter 2018, 2) – islands have played a march larger role in history than their small size may suggest. With 13% of world heritage sites on their land (Baldacchino 2006: 3), islands have stimulated abundant interest among researchers employing methods from the field of island studies to compare island(er) histories.
Before the field of island studies was established, island history was a part (and sometimes a very small part) of maritime history. Islands in maritime history often appeared as transitory locations along the way to somewhere else or as navigational obstacles on route. Useful as refueling stations, locations to wait out a storm, to recruit laborers, or sources of natural resources, islands in maritime history were more often studied as steppingstones along the way rather than as destinations in and of themselves. Island history within the field of island studies instead starts first with island-specific dynamics and then works ‘bottom-up’ or ‘inside-out’ to draw conclusions on the larger context (Baldacchino 2008). Several historians have been instrumental in their inclusion of islands and islanders, as well as promoting island studies as a bridge between maritime history and global history (Edmon and Smith 2003; Gillis 2012; Sivasundaram 2014; Sicking 2014; North 2018).
Island studies historians ask: what about the people who lived in the middle of the ocean? What about islanders who never boarded a boat (because they could not afford to or because they did not want to)? What is unique about their experiences, and can they be compared with other islands, coasts, or ports areas on the mainland? Indeed, islanders can teach us about a long past of coping with waves of migrations, epidemic outbreaks, and climate and environmental changes (Contable 2004; Santana-Pérez 2016; Abulafia 2000). Notably, many island societies, due to their locations along trade routes, needed to cope with cultural diversity, making them important locations to study multilingualism, integration, cross-cultural communication, hybrid religious practices, and peace-keeping initiatives (McCusker and Soares 2011; Wilkens 2014). Reoccurring traits, such as the use of islands for exile, prisons, or holy sites, or the changing of island environments by colonial invasive species, or the impact of weather on island life (e.g. from monsoons, floods, hurricanes) can be compared. Analyzing specific characteristics of islands because they are islands, leads to critical reflections that can contribute to larger public and academic debates, for example on innovative solutions to freshwater scarcity (see article on: Island Water Scarcity).
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North, Michael. “The Baltic Sea.” Oceanic Histories. Eds. Armitage, David, Alison Bashford, and Sujit Sivasundaram. Cambridge: 2018, 209–233.
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Oceanic islands are often at the top of the freshwater scarcity index; as paradoxical pieces of land, they are sea-locked but their fresh and brackish water supplies are land-locked. That is to say, in a metaphoric, analogic and geopoetic way, the tiny oceanic islands are fragile oases with limited freshwater amenities surrounded by a boundless desert-like salty ocean.
In addition to brackish groundwater and a lack of annually flowing rivers, some islands face a pollution of aquifers through toxic volcanic gasses, deforestation, desertification, and overexploitation of water resources (WR) through water-intensive monoculture crops and mismanagement of domestic water supplies. Even flashfloods can exacerbate limited freshwater supplies by dragging pollutants into water storage systems, such as cisterns. Islands receive proportionally more precipitation than continents due to their oceanic context, as they are directly under the influences of Tradewinds and westerlies. Conversely, as “sealocked” and relatively small pieces of land, they only collect rainwater from their area and cannot benefit from “WR externalities” such as large regional or continental aquifers or huge allochtone rivers with their source in more humid zones (i.e. the Nil). Consequently, due to their little size, their catchment basins are small with erratic streamflows with either sudden and devastating flash floods or no water flow at all during the dry season. The decennial “WR inertia” of small islands is limited to mitigate the interannual fluctuations of rainfalls which is a universal phenomenon on a hydroclimatologic mesoscale of about 10,000 km² corresponding to medium size islands (i.e. Cyprus) The driest islands are mostly located in the Red Sea, in addition to Socotra, Jerba, and the western Canary Islands of Lanzarote and Fuerteventura (Map 1).
Map 1: average precipitation per year over the period 1950-2000 on islands
The erraticism of variable oceanic weather patterns and terrestrial hydrological processes combined with a disconnection from large land-based water support prompts islands to reveal drastic signs of the worsening of climate and environmental changes before they appear on the mainland (Depraetere & Morell 2009). Also the geographical isolation of small islands and their limited physical size can make the effects of climate change and implications for water supplies more severe than on the mainland (Ratter 2018). The smaller and lower the island, the greater reliance on groundwater it has; a major drawback for islanders is the fragile equilibrium of the freshwater lens with the surrounding seawater and the difficulty of pumping floating freshwater without saltwater entering the supply; this is why Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) is more than elsewhere a vital approach to fulfil an optimal use of the resource for the locally-based various economic sectors, overall health issues, and island biodiversity, in short for social development (Depraetere et al. 2020).
A lack of freshwater is also detrimental for agriculture, tourism and island life at large. For example, it is a common trait of islandness that only a few crop varieties are grown on small islands, making the effects of crop failure harmful for the economy and local food supplies (Royle 2004). Also limited specialized labourers on small islands (e.g. engineers) may not be able to provide continuous solutions to hydraulic infrastructure problems created by storms, to which small islands are especially susceptible (Braje et al. 2017, cf. also “stone gardening” to avoid soil erosion and gullies on sloping fields (Mieth & Bork 2004). The governance structure and level of political corruption of a given society directly affects the distribution of water supplies. Especially on islands where freshwater supplies are in private hands, limited access to water exasperates already existing income inequalities; islanders without “hydraulic citizenship” may suffer from a diminished ability to participate in society (Anand 2017). Conversely, the availability of low-cost water when subsidised by local authorities generally induces an over-consumption and waste of water resources.
But the picture is not only bleak. Studying island water scarcity sheds light on the coping mechanisms, adaptations, and innovation of islanders over centuries (Schön & Dierksmeier 2021). In some cases, islanders provide examples that could be implemented mutatis mutandis on other islands or the mainland; as such they should be considered as bellwethers to cope with ongoing environmental changes and evolution of the societies to deal with mitigation/adaptation to climate change. For example, on the Canary islands from 1500-1800 (Map 2), a separate water police force was implemented to protect water supplies, water-yielding plant species called “Fountain Trees” were carefully guarded, low-cost domestic solutions to distil water were employed (“La destiladera Canaria”), extensive cisterns collected rain water, fog moisture was collected from pine trees, academic societies (Real Sociedad de Amigos del País) awarded prizes for innovation technological solutions, and communities came together to protest for their needs until news travelled to the mainland to reach people who could help them (Dierksmeier 2020; Gioda et al. 1995A and 1995B).
Map 2: average precipitation per year over the period 1950-2000 on the Canarian archipelago and the Selvagens islands
Water scarcity on islands also affects religious and cultural practices. For example, the “DiNapolito’s hypothesis” tries to explain the putative relations between the sacred zones with ahu statues and freshwater, one of the most critical resources on Rapa Nui. The hypothesis suggests that the locations of ahu are explained by their distance from coastal seeps, demonstrating the vital importance of coastal freshwater resources (DiNapoli et al. 2019). Despite the fact that Rapa Nui receives 1,177 mm/year of water on average, surface and sub-surface WR storage are erratic due the porosity and permeability of the volcanic basement. The utmost sign of precontact Pascuan populations’ dependencies on water resources stands on the fact that the hypnotic gaze of ahu are screening the island hinterland and NOT the open-sea; it illustrates the tight entanglement of hydrological and societal factors in constrained insular geographical contexts.
Water scarcity derives from manifold geological and geographical challenges, with a long history of solutions to one of the most significant enigmas of island life.
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