Here are some major cities around the globe that will be underwater in the future!
10 - Osaka, Japan A former capital of Japan, Osaka has been
an economic and commercial center for centuries.
More than 2.5 million people live in the city, and Osaka is the country's second most populated
city, after Tokyo.
Osaka is also known as the "kitchen of Japan," and is famous for delicious food.
As a result of global sea-level rise, storm surges and other factors, economists project
that coastal flooding could put it at risk by the 2070s.
Over this century and beyond, scientists expect a warming world to drive further sea-level
rise, putting several more million people in Japan at risk of flooding.
As if sea levels rising weren’t enough, Japan is also exposed to the environmental,
economic, and social effects of typhoons.
Parts of Osaka – the commercial heart of a region whose GDP is almost as big as that
of the Netherlands – might disappear completely underwater.
This obviously would threaten the local economy and almost a third of the wider region’s
19 million residents.
Scientists project that global sea level is likely to rise as high as nearly two feet
above recent average levels by the end of this century, affecting 5.2 million people.
9 - Alexandria, Egypt The coastline that draws locals to Alexandria’s
scenic vistas is threatening to slowly engulf the historic city because of rising sea levels.
The government has warned that 13% of Egypt’s coastline is at risk from rising Mediterranean
sea levels.
Many of the cafes and businesses on the Alexandria coast have begun adjusting to extreme weather.
On the southern tip of the Mediterranean, the coastal waters are inching closer to buildings
and flooded ancient structures, including the Greco-Roman tombs at Anfushi.
Seawater seeping into the groundwater has also made the fragile ground more unstable,
resulting in the alarming collapse of some of the city’s buildings.
The UN estimates that global sea levels will rise between 5 and 26 inches by 2050, and
they say that the Mediterranean region is particularly vulnerable.
The IPCC reported that Alexandria’s beaches would be submerged even with a 20-inch sea-level
rise, while 8 million people would be displaced by flooding in Alexandria and the Nile Delta
if no protective measures are taken!
8 - Shanghai, China In March 2017, China's State Oceanic Administration
issued a report that stated that the average sea level along the Chinese coast was 33 millimeters
higher than it was 2015, and 82 millimeters higher than the average level from 1993 to
2011.
The finding continues a trend that has seen sea levels rising along the Chinese coast
by an average of 3.2 millimeters each year.
The administration attributes this trend to climate change.
When it comes to flooding, the coastal city of Shanghai is one of the world’s most vulnerable.
Now one of the world’s biggest ports, the former fishing village is bordered by the
Yangtze river in the north and divided through the middle by the Huangpu river.
The municipality involves several islands, two long coastlines, shipping ports, and miles
of canals, rivers, and waterways.
In 2012, a report from a team of UK and Dutch scientists declared Shanghai the most vulnerable
major city in the world to serious flooding, based on factors such as numbers of people
living close to the coastline, time needed to recover from flooding, and measures to
prevent floodwater.
According to Climate Central projections, 17 and a half million people could be displaced
by rising waters if global temperatures increase by 3 degrees celsius.
Projections show that the vast majority of the city could eventually be submerged in
water!
These areas include much of the downtown region, both airports, and the entirety of Shanghai’s
outlying Chongming Island!
7 - Miami, FL, USA Pancake flat and built on porous ground that’s
slowly sinking back to the seabed, Miami Beach is surrounded by water that’s rising three
times the pace of the global average.
The entire southern section of Florida is at risk, but Miami Beach is of particular
concern from other Florida cities.
The obvious reason is that water levels here are rising especially quickly.
The most frequent estimates puts the likely range between 6 to 10 inches above 1992 levels
by 2030, and 31 to 61 inches by 2100.
With tides higher than they have been in decades and far higher than when this swampy, tropical
corner of the US began to be drained and built on a century ago, many of south Florida’s
drainage systems and seawalls are no longer enough.
Miami Beach has spent around $200 million dollars raising the height of streets in vulnerable
areas and the city even has a network of pumps to force water back off the streets after
flooding.
Even more radical fixes will be required.
If rising sea levels aren’t quickly tamed, then this vacation hotspot could be swallowed
up by the end of this century!
6 - Kiribati Pacific island nations are among the world’s
most physically and economically vulnerable to climate change.
Much of Kiribati, a collection of 33 coral atolls and reef islands scattered across a
portion of the Pacific Ocean, lies no higher than six feet above sea level.
The latest climate models predict that the world’s oceans could rise five to six feet
by 2100.
The prospects of rising seas and intensifying storms threaten the very existence and livelihoods
of large segments of the population.
Half of the sixty five hundred person village of Bikenibeu, for instance, could be destroyed
by 2050 by sea-level rises and storm surges.
Apart from that, degraded coral reefs, damaged by warming water, would allow stronger waves
to slam the coast, increasing erosion.
This would disrupt the food supply for the island, which depends heavily on fish supported
by the reefs.
In response, Kiribati has essentially been drawing up plans for its demise.
The government has promoted “migration with dignity,” urging residents to consider moving
abroad with employable skills.
It bought nearly 6,000 acres in Fiji, an island nation more than a thousand miles away, as
a potential refuge.
Fiji’s higher elevation and more stable shoreline make it less vulnerable.
5 - Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Residents of Brazil’s postcard city have
plenty of reasons to fear global warming – even if they don’t quite know it.
According to Climate Central, a temperature rise of 3 degrees celsius would cause flooding
of not just Rio’s famous beaches such as Copacabana and its waterfront domestic airport,
but also inland areas of the Barra de Tijuca neighborhood where the Olympic Games were
held in 2016.
Storm surges in 2017 destroyed hundreds of meters of beachfront pavement overlooking
the Macumba beach, a popular surfing spot.
In 2016, heavy waves in another storm surge decimated an elevated, clifftop cycle path
between Leblon beach and Barra de Tijuca.
The increasing frequency of the storms is hindering Rio’s beaches’ ability to recuperate,
leading to erosion along stretches of the shoreline.
An adaptation plan for climate change produced with professors from the federal university
suggested strategies to deal with vulnerabilities in areas such as transport, health and housing.
But so far little has been done.
Brazil has more than 4,000 miles of shoreline and 25% of its population lives along the
coast, so a viable solution should be put in place sooner than later.
4 - New York City, NY, USA Like most American cities that border an ocean,
New York City is at risk for flooding.
By 2050, NYC's average temperature is expected to rise between 4.1 and 6.6 degrees fahrenheit,
and annual precipitation is expected to increase between 4 and 13 percent.
Dangerous waves are also now 20 times more likely to overwhelm the Manhattan seawall
than they were 170 years ago.
The Mayor’s Office of Recovery & Resiliency released the city's first-ever Climate Resiliency
Design Guidelines in early May 2017.
The document recommends building design strategies for how to mitigate extreme heat, precipitation,
flooding, and storm surges.
It also links to an interactive map that shows which streets are in the danger zones for
flooding from the 2020s to 2100.
Catastrophic flooding in New York City similar to destruction from Hurricane Sandy is predicted
to become far more common in the coming decades.
Rising sea levels could prompt devastating floods that used to occur once every 500 years
to happen once every 5 years by 2030 to 2045.
Fingers crossed experts are wrong!
3 - Hong Kong Hong Kong is a city that’s extremely vulnerable
to climate change.
Extreme weather is becoming more and more common.
Since Hong Kong has a coastline of 455 miles, coastal flooding is likely when sea level
rises.
When there are tropical cyclones, flooding from storm surges will be magnified.
Although the city has done substantial work on flood prevention over the years, it still
can’t withstand floods of higher strength.
To cope with storm water flooding in the inner city, the government could adopt the “Sponge
City” concept to collect excess rainfall and integrate flood control in urban design.
Instead of diverting surface water runoff, sponge city aims at absorbing, capturing,
controlling and purifying rainwater runoff within its own region.
China has put forward the sponge city concept and selected 16 cities for pilot testing in
2015.
The pilot sponge city projects in Beijing, Shanghai and Xinjiang showed positive results,
as the concept seemed to be able to control 85 percent of runoff water.
2 - Sydney, Australia The giant ice sheets of Antarctica and Greenland
are melting faster than scientists previously estimated, raising the prospect of a faster
sea level rise.
This places at risk low-lying areas of Sydney and other parts of low-lying Australia.
New research from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has lifted
the "plausible" sea level rise by 2100 to as much as 6 to 8 feet.
Theoretically, it’s only a matter of time when it will happen, and not a question of
“if”.
If that 6 foot rise happens, the airport in Sydney, Brisbane and Hobart will all be largely
underwater by 2100.
Other areas at risk in Sydney from such a rise include Wentworth Park, Royal Botanic
Gardens, Woolloomooloo and Rose Bay.
Most of the areas highlighted as low lying and vulnerable are the same ones that are
already prone to flooding in big storms.According to the Coastal Risk Australia website, major
infrastructure could be lost by the end of the century.
Over 80 percent of Australians live 50 kilometers or less from the coast, and it’s critical
a solution is put into place soon!
1 - Venice, Italy Sea-level rise isn't the only thing that has
Venice's famous canals rising ever-so-slightly every year: the city is also sinking.
Wellps…...that escalated quickly!
Venice sinking was recognized as a major issue decades ago, when scientists realized that
pumping groundwater from beneath the city, combined with the ground's compaction from
centuries of building, was causing the city to settle.
But officials have put a stop to the groundwater pumping.
However, floods are happening more frequently along Venice's canals now, and residents have
to walk on wooden planks to stay above the floodwaters in large parts of the city about
four or five times a year.
A multibillion-dollar effort to install flood-protection walls that can be raised to block incoming
tides are almost done.
These barriers were designed to protect the city from tides that are coming in higher
as a result of rising sea levels.
Venice sank about 4.7 inches in the 20th century because of natural processes and groundwater
extraction, in addition to a sea level rise of about 4.3 inches at the same time.
It’s been calculated that the city and surrounding land could sink by about 3.2 inches relative
to the sea in the next 20 years if the current rate holds steady.
Fingers crossed for Venice too!
Here’s what’s next!