Sea-Level Rise and Climate Adaptation in Aruba

Selected Issues Papers, December 30, 2025

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Sea-level rise presents long-term risks in Aruba that can lead to sizable permanent costs with potentially large macroeconomic and fiscal consequences.
Aruba cannot control global sea-level, but it can manage how it affects the country by adapting.
IMF Staff use the state-of-the-art model CIAM to estimate impacts and adaptation benefits.

Planned coastline protection—in the form of dykes, revetment, floodgates, costal dunes, etc.—can reduce losses by approximately 40 percent by avoiding permanent inundation of land and relocation of population.
Estimates of protection costs in Aruba are around 0.4 percent of annual GDP with a moderate emission scenario and do not grow.
Implementing coastal protections will likely require an increase in public spending as coastal protections are public infrastructure.

Loss reduction from planned coastline protection: approximately 40 percent.
Estimated protection costs: around 0.4 percent of annual GDP under a moderate emission scenario.
Nature of costs over time: do not grow (under the stated scenario).

Prioritize planned coastline protection measures (dykes, revetment, floodgates, costal dunes) to avoid permanent inundation and population relocation.
Recognize the fiscal implication that protection is public infrastructure likely requiring increased public spending.

Sea-Level Rise and Climate Adaptation in Aruba, Emanuele Massetti, Selected Issues Papers, December 30, 2025.