For the Marshall Islands, climate change isn't some distant, future danger: It is already wreaking havoc across the Pacific country's more than 1,100 low-lying atolls.

Now, a new study claims that climate change may soon deal the country's water supplies a death blow. As sea levels rise around the islands, bigger waves will flood farther inland than ever before. If enough of these waves hit in succession, flooded saltwater will irreparably taint the islands' freshwater supplies.

Under reference scenarios for sea-level rise used by the U.S. Department of Defense, one of the Marshall Islands' atolls—and potentially thousands of other islands—could become uninhabitable when sea levels rise by 16 inches, which could happen as soon as midcentury.

“We hope the managers