Study sheds new light on how climate change will affect coastal areas, national economies

Aug 19, 2013 20:51 GMT  ·  By

A new study published in yesterday's issue of the journal Nature Climate Change details how climate change will affect coastal areas and national economies in the years to come.

Long story short, the researchers behind this paper argue that, according to their estimates, the extreme weather manifestations that will hit coastal areas in the years to come will produce about $1 trillion (€0.75 trillion) worth of damage annually.

Coastal cities in Asia and North America are the ones likely to be hit the hardest, Live Science reports.

Furthermore, it appears that New York, New Orleans and Miami are the ones more vulnerable to aggressive storms and other similar phenomena spawned by climate change and global warming.

Guangzhou and Shenzen, China; Mumbai and Kolkata, India; Guayaquil, Ecuador are also likely to suffer extensive damage should climate change models prove accurate.

The same source informs us that, as several previous studies have pointed out, climate change and global warming will up not just the frequency, but also the strength of storms that will form and hit coastlines in the years to come.

Besides, the estimated global sea level rise is expected to also have a say in the matter, and increase the cost of coastal damage.

The researchers now urge that high officials, especially those in Asia and North America, invest in protecting coastal cities against climate change and its related phenomena.

They say that these cities should erect storm surge barriers, secure buildings against floods, turn areas that are likely to be flooded into either parks, football fields and the like and increase the height of levees.

“The bottom line is it shows that flood risk is rising today – it's happening. All these cities need to be preparing for that,” researcher Robert Nicholls says.

“If we did nothing about the risk, the flood damages in coastal cities would grow to huge amounts. So that's really not an option,” he adds.

Should coastal cities take measures to protect themselves, the predicted damage cost could be cut in half.