Since 2000, the Maldives have added 37.50 km 2 of land area, while 16.57 km 2 of new islands have appeared within the South China Seas Spratly and Paracel chains. Most of the change in land area resulted from island building within the Maldives and on atolls in the South China Sea. Results show that, between 20, the total land area on these atolls has increased by 61.74 km 2 (6.1 %) from 1007.60 km 2 to 1069.35 km 2.
Using rich collections of Landsat imagery, this study analyses changes in land area on 221 atolls in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. As a result, the global response of atoll islands coincident with sea level rise remains uncertain. Existing studies of atoll island change have been based on small, temporally sparse samples of islands on a limited number of atolls. Despite concerns of erosion driven by sea level rise, no published evidence exists of pervasive erosion of atoll islands at a global scale. One widely discussed potential impact of sea level rise is the widespread, chronic erosion of atoll islands. The long-term persistence of atoll islands is under threat due to continued sea level rise driven by anthropogenic climate change.