Waikiki all washed up, say surfers

Defences installed to save one of Hawaii’s most famous beaches from vanishing beneath rising seas have upset surfers who fear they will ruin the waves.

Diamond Head volcano behind the hotels and buildings that line Waikiki Beach on the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

Defences installed to save one of Hawaii’s most famous beaches from vanishing beneath rising seas have upset surfers who fear they will ruin the waves.

Among the more radical proposals suggested to save Waikiki include transforming it into the Venice of the Pacific by building canals or hollowing out the lower floors of buildings.

The shoreline at Waikiki, once home to Hawaiian royalty, is now lined with towering hotels that draw visitors from all over the world.

By reputation at least, it is also lined with golden beaches. There the Hawaiian swimmer Duke Kahanamoku first breasted the surf and made millions dream of a place where “the water is 76 degrees, day and night, and the waves roll high”.

Surfers enjoy the gentle waves at Waikiki beach

But lately visitors have struggled to negotiate crowded walkways, past pipes exposed by the waves and stairs that once led to sand now running straight into the ocean.

“It’s one of the least walkable stretches on the island,” Hawaii Business reported recently. The beachfront is “narrow, clogged with people and structures, or literally gone”.

The prospect of a 120cm sea-level rise by the end of the century, which was predicted by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has prompted proposals for how Waikiki could be transformed to cope.

But the value of the shoreline has made many reluctant to abandon the beaches. A study by the University of Hawaii showed that if the beaches were completely eroded, Waikiki would lose about $US2.2bn ($3.14bn) in annual revenue as tourists went elsewhere.

Crowds gather for sunset Waikiki Beach.

A group funded by local businesses has constructed a groyne to try to protect part of the coastline with plans for more and the construction of a new beach. But these have prompted protests from locals fearful that the earthworks will disrupt the surf breaks.

Alternative proposals envision hollowing out the first floors of buildings on the coast and creating a system of canals to absorb the rising waters.

Judith Stilgenbauer, a professor of landscape architecture and urban design at the University of Hawaii, told Politico that a Venetian-style solution, in which some streets were replaced by canals and a floodable shoreline could allow Waikiki to live with a future of continuous flooding.

The Times