Written by Caroline Beach
Tuvalu is a small Pacific island nation threatened by rising sea levels that are reshaping its land and infrastructure. This article explores how it is using lidar, mobile mapping, and digital twin technology to document its territory and preserve national identity as conditions change.
The world’s first digital nation is being built one pixel at a time with PLACE, ArcGIS, and Mosaic.
When your entire country fits into just 26 square kilometers of low-lying coral atolls threatened by climate change, mapping the country takes on a new meaning. For Tuvalu, the maps they are creating with PLACE will serve as evidence and a collective memory of land that may be underwater within decades.
Climate change is affecting different regions at varying paces and severities. Some places are barely experiencing effects beyond an extended summer or an unusually wet winter, while others are threatened at an existential level.
Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation of around 11,000 people, is already experiencing king tides that force bulldozers onto the runway to push the tarmac back onto its coral foundation. Saltwater intrusion, chronic flooding, and coastal erosion are reshaping the islands in real time.
In response, Tuvalu is doing something unprecedented: building a digital nation. Alongside constitutional reform and a landmark climate-refuge treaty with Australia, the government is creating a high-resolution digital twin of its territory and culture, underpinned by full 3D LiDAR scans and 360° streetview imagery.
PLACE, a global non-profit technology organization that describes itself as a “mapping data trust for people and planet,” has been tasked with capturing that reality. To do so, they needed tools that were resilient to Tuvalu’s unique environment. One of those tools is the Mosaic 51: a rugged, 12.3K panoramic 360° camera built for mobile mapping in harsh conditions.
This is the story of how mapping, LiDAR, and street-level imagery are helping Tuvalu safeguard its sense of place in a world where its land is at risk of disappearing.
Tuvalu: a country at sea level
Tuvalu comprises nine coral islands in the central Pacific, roughly halfway between Australia and Hawaii. Its average elevation is about two meters above sea level; the highest point is only a few meters higher.
As one effect of climate change, sea level in parts of the Pacific has risen by roughly twice the global average over recent decades. For Tuvalu, the evidence is clear. Currently, they are facing major infrastructural and existential issues, specifically:
- Low-lying neighborhoods are flooding at high tide
- Saltwater is seeping up through the porous ground into freshwater wells and gardens
- Shorelines have already shifted dramatically in just a few years
On some full-moon king tides, water even bubbles up through the ground under the country’s only runway, lifting the tarmac until heavy machinery pushes it back down. The airport tarmac is Tuvalu’s lifeline to the rest of the world and also the center of social life on the island.
The geopolitical consequences for Tuvalu are just as serious as the physical ones. In 2023, Tuvalu and Australia signed the Falepili Union treaty, which includes a pathway for up to 280 Tuvaluans per year to migrate to Australia on permanent resident visas. This is the world’s first bilateral climate refuge treaty.
Tuvalu has also amended its constitution to declare that its statehood and maritime zones remain permanent, even if parts of its land, or the entire physical country, are lost to rising sea levels.
At the same time, Tuvalu launched the “Future Now” Digital Nation initiative. This plan includes creating a digital twin of all its islands, paired with digital governance tools such as online elections and digital passports. This raises a profound question that geospatial professionals are uniquely placed to help answer:
What does it mean for a country to exist when its territory is partly, or even entirely, represented as pixels and point clouds?
PLACE: a mapping data trust
PLACE is not a traditional commercial mapping provider. It is a global non-profit technology organization with a clear mission: to build a mapping data trust “for people and planet.”
Several aspects of their model are particularly important for small island states like Tuvalu:
Government ownership
PLACE collects high-resolution aerial and street imagery at no cost to governments, who retain ownership of the data. A copy is placed into a UK-based data trust that holds it in perpetuity for public-interest uses.
Ethical sharing
The trust licenses data to a global community of users who work on climate resilience, urban development, and other public-good projects, under conditions that respect privacy and national sovereignty.
“We always talk about being cautious when we capture street-view imagery because you’re literally in the windows of people’s lives. When you’re down at that kind of level, and depending on where you are in the world, that can make certain communities more vulnerable than others.”
-Denise McKenzie, Managing Partner at PLACE Trust
Capacity building
PLACE insists on working with local survey and land-office teams, turning each capture campaign into on-the-job training for national staff who will maintain and use the data long after the field team leaves.
This architecture pairs naturally with Mosaic’s own philosophy: hardware and imagery that are deliberately open, compatible with existing GIS and photogrammetry tools, and not locked into a proprietary system.
Imagery from Mosaic mobile mapping systems can be uploaded directly into ArcGIS Reality and other common toolchains. It can be used alongside LiDAR and drone data, and archived under whatever organizational model the country chooses.
Mapping Tuvalu for cultural preservation
For most of us, a digital twin is a planning and analytics asset. For Tuvalu, it is also an archive of the nation’s identity. In 2019, the United Nations Development Programme implemented the Tuvalu Coastal Adaptation Project (TCAP). This short-term project was the first step toward mapping Tuvalu’s topography and surrounding seafloor using small aircraft with LiDAR scanners. Combined with tide gauges and sea-level observations, this was the first time Tuvalu had a complete picture of how water levels relate to ground height across all its islands.
The next step was for Tuvalu to build a cooperation with PLACE to build on this foundation. The PLACE team, supported by the Pacific Community’s Digital Earth Pacific program, signed an agreement with Tuvalu in 2023 to collect detailed mapping data for all 26 square kilometers of land. In early 2024, PLACE flew an eVTOL UAV that captured more than 1,000 geotagged images of reef shapes, shorelines, and built-up areas.
Next, the Mosaic 51 360° camera system was mounted on a truck to capture footage along every road in Funafuti. It captured panoramic imagery at survey-grade positional accuracy. The same camera was mounted on a backpack for use in areas accessible only on foot, such as narrow paths or causeways with unstable ground. This imagery showed what it actually feels like to stand on the runway, walk past a building, or drive through Funafuti at dusk.
Lastly, photogrammetry and ArcGIS Reality workflows then transformed these images into true orthophotos, 3D meshes, a detailed digital surface model of the atoll, and dense point clouds that form the backbone of a national digital twin. Existing LiDAR data and tide information were integrated to model flooding and shoreline change.
But getting a 360° camera system to Funafuti is not simple. Operationally, Tuvalu is difficult to map precisely due to its small size and remoteness. It means:
- Long flights and infrequent cargo options
- Limited opportunities to replace or repair broken components
- Humid, salty, and hot conditions that attack connectors and seals
- Rough roads and improvised vehicle mounts
For PLACE, which needs to replicate this kind of campaign across many countries, a robust, reliable camera system is not merely a convenience; it is an operational requirement.
“With the Mosaic camera, the PLACE team is able to efficiently capture the high-resolution imagery and positionally accurate data our members require. We’ve worked with a range of cameras over the years, but the ability to collect quality data at any speed, regardless of weather and changing light conditions, and in a solid hardware package that can handle occasional branches, sets the Mosaic camera apart. Combine the equipment with first-rate support from the Mosaic team, and I don’t see us using a different camera for primary data collection.”
– Frank Pichel, Managing Director at PLACE
Using mobile mapping for decision-making
Once the capture is complete, the work shifts from hardware to data pipelines. PLACE and Tuvalu’s Land and Survey Office are using ArcGIS Reality to turn raw images into a multi-scale digital twin. It contains:
- 2D products
- True orthophotos of Funafuti, suitable as authoritative basemaps
- Change detection outputs comparing 2019 and 2024 imagery to highlight new buildings, reclaimed land, or eroded shorelines
- 3D products
- Detailed 3D meshes of the atoll’s built-up areas
- Point clouds that can be fused with LiDAR to improve elevation models
- Derived analytics
- Machine learning models to extract building footprints, vegetation, and infrastructure
- Flood exposure maps that overlay projected water levels with population and asset data
- Solar potential analysis based on roof slope, aspect, and shading is used to prioritize future installations
The same underlying datasets support many different questions:
- Where should coastal defenses or mangrove restoration be focused?
- Which neighborhoods will be exposed earliest to chronic flooding under different sea-level scenarios?
- Which evacuation routes remain passable under extreme tide conditions?
- How is the coastline changing over five-year intervals?
For a country with limited technical staff and budget, having a single, well-structured digital twin that supports both long-term planning and day-to-day governance is far more realistic than buying separate systems for each ministry.
Digital nation, digital citizens
Tuvalu’s Digital Nation initiative goes beyond mapping land and infrastructure. The technical achievements in Tuvalu are impressive, but the deeper story is about citizenship and sovereignty as our landscapes shift under our feet. The Tuvalu government is working towards:
- Digitizing archives of political, cultural, and historical documents
- Preserving songs, dances, stories, and language in digital form
- Issuing digital passports and moving civil registration (births, deaths, marriages) online
- Conducting elections and referendums through digital platforms
- Hosting an immersive virtual version of Tuvalu in the metaverse for citizens and visitors
At the same time, treaties such as the Falepili Union with Australia are creating new forms of climate mobility. Tuvaluans may live and work abroad while remaining part of a digital polity that asserts continuity of statehood and maritime rights.
From a legal perspective, scholars have pointed out that there are no settled rules yet for “digital states.” Traditional international law assumes a permanent, physical territory. Tuvalu and other Pacific states are pushing for recognition that maritime boundaries and statehood can remain fixed even as coastlines shift.
For the geospatial community, this is a fascinating (and sobering) frontier. Maps and datasets are no longer just input to policy. They are part of the argument for the state’s continued existence. A digital twin becomes, in a very real sense, part of the territory it represents.
Street-level imagery and LiDAR scans are becoming instruments of climate justice. They document both the beauty of a place and the losses inflicted by global emissions.
PLACE’s data trust model and Mosaic’s open, vendor-agnostic camera systems sit right at the intersection of these issues. They enable the creation of a detailed digital nation without surrendering control of its data to a single company.
Takeaways for the geospatial world
What can the wider mobile mapping and LiDAR community learn from Tuvalu’s experience to date?
1. High-quality data is a human rights issue, not just a technical one
Tuvalu’s leaders have been very clear about their mobile mapping project. It is about preserving their culture and legal rights, not just high-tech 3D models. If we accept that premise, then designing systems that make high-quality mapping affordable and sustainable for vulnerable nations becomes a moral obligation, not an optional CSR project.
2. Durability and simplicity matter as much as specs
When you operate thousands of kilometers from a service center, on roads that flood, and in intense humidity, “just works” is a feature. The Mosaic 51’s combination of rugged build, internal storage, and single-operator workflow reflects a design philosophy shaped by exactly these scenarios.
It is easy to chase higher point densities and bigger sensors. Tuvalu reminds us that reliability and repeatability are often more important than raw numbers.
3. Open ecosystems enable sovereign digital futures
PLACE’s business model, Esri’s ArcGIS Reality workflows, and Mosaic’s open formats form an ecosystem that enables Tuvalu’s government to manage its data as needed. The possibilities include:
- Hosting data where it chooses,
- Sharing carefully with international partners and researchers, and
- Keeping post-processing options open as tools evolve or retire.
That flexibility is essential when you are building something that needs to be usable for decades and potentially outlive the physical territory it represents.
Looking ahead
Tuvalu is just the first of many countries that will have to grapple with these existential questions. Other small island countries, low-lying delta regions, and even coastal megacities are already facing similar climate-change challenges. Reality capture and digital twin creation are among the tools that can manage risk and preserve heritage.
The partnership between PLACE, ArcGIS, Tuvalu, and Mosaic is one example of how the geospatial community can respond:
- Non-profits can design governance models that respect sovereignty and the public interest.
- Vendors can build tools that are robust, open, and usable in the world’s most challenging environments.
- Governments and funders can support data collection not just where the market already demands it, but where the need is greatest.
For Mosaic, it is an honor that the same camera systems used to inspect power lines and manage road networks are also helping a nation at the front line of climate change tell its story and protect its sovereignty.
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