Hundreds of millions more people will now be at risk from rising seas in the coming decades - with Asia and island nations most vulnerable. How we react to the climate crisis is now even more crucial.
More frequent coastal storms are stressing ecosystems like these North Carolina marshes.
PumpkinSky/Wikipedia
Hans Paerl, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
As climate change speeds up tropical storm cycles, rivers and bays have less time to process nutrients and pollutants that wash into them after each event.
Surf threatens beach houses on Dauphin Island, Alabama, September 4, 2011 during Tropical Storm Lee.
AP Photo/Dave Martin
‘Building back better’ refers to making communities more disaster-proof and resilient after they take a hit. But instead, some US owners are building back bigger homes in vulnerable places.
Flooding in Wainfleet All Saints, Lincolnshire, which received two months rain in two days in June 2019.
Joe Giddens/PA
Michael Beck, University of California, Santa Cruz
A new report shows that coral reefs reduce damage from floods across the United States and its trust territories by more than $1.8 billion every year – and pinpoints that value state by state.
Carbon storage in Australian mangroves can help mitigate climate change.
Shutterstock
Australia’s coastal settlements are highly exposed to the impacts of climate change. Climate-resilient urban landscapes that can cope with large amounts of water need to become the new normal.
Experimental field of a salt-tolerant rice variety in Bangladesh.
IRRI
Rising seas and groundwater depletion, both driven by climate change, are making soils saltier in many parts of the world. Farmers will need help adapting, especially in developing countries.
Coastal real estate prices appear to be taking a hit, but mostly in neighborhoods with more climate change believers.
Protecting coastal wetlands, like this slough in Florida’s Everglades National Park, is a cost-effective way to reduce flooding and storm damage.
NPS/C. Rivas
Coastal development is destroying marshes, mangroves and other wetlands that provide valuable protection from hurricanes and storms. Research shows these benefits can be worth millions of dollars.
Many US coastal towns are building defenses to protect against rising seas and storms. This can encourage people to stay in place when they should be moving inland.
People of color tend to suffer financially more than whites after natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina.
Reuters/Carlos Barria
A new study shows that natural disasters enrich white victims while hurting people of color, worsening wealth inequality. And government aid contributes to the problem.
A woman gets back into her flooded car on the Toronto Indy course on Lakeshore Boulevard in Toronto on July 8, 2013. Housing developers are building housing on known flood plains in cities around the world.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn
Cities around the world, including Toronto, are building housing on flood plains knowing the risks in the era of climate change. Here’s why that will contribute to growing inequality in our cities.
King tides now regularly breach seawalls meant to protect Torres Strait Island communities, and it happened again last week.
Suzanne Long/AAP
King tides and rising seas are an increasing and predictable threat, but adaptation plans to limit the damage to coastal property are still not managing the political obstacles.
A motorist drives through “nuisance flooding” in Charleston, SC, Oct. 1, 2015.
AP Photo/Stephen B. Morton
Climate change is raising global sea levels. Now research shows that ‘hot spots’ where seas rise another 4 to 5 inches in five years can occur along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, further magnifying floods.
Coastal wetlands are an effective first line of defense and act by slowing down storm surges and reducing flooding.
Kelly Fike/USFWS
New research by scholars, conservationists and the insurance industry shows that coastal wetlands provide hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of protection from flooding, boosting the case for protecting them.
As flooding took hold in the Houston area, volunteers who suffered through Hurricane Katrina made their way to Texas.
AP Photo/David J. Phillip