Disappearing cities on US coasts.

Autor: Ohenhen LO; Department of Geosciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA. ohleonard@vt.edu.; Virginia Tech National Security Institute, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA. ohleonard@vt.edu., Shirzaei M; Department of Geosciences, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA.; Virginia Tech National Security Institute, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA.; Institute for Water, Environment and Health, United Nations University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada., Ojha C; Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, IISER Mohali, Punjab, India., Sherpa SF; Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA.; Institute at Brown for Environment and Society, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA., Nicholls RJ; Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Nature [Nature] 2024 Mar; Vol. 627 (8002), pp. 108-115. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Mar 06.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07038-3
Abstrakt: The sea level along the US coastlines is projected to rise by 0.25-0.3 m by 2050, increasing the probability of more destructive flooding and inundation in major cities 1-3 . However, these impacts may be exacerbated by coastal subsidence-the sinking of coastal land areas 4 -a factor that is often underrepresented in coastal-management policies and long-term urban planning 2,5 . In this study, we combine high-resolution vertical land motion (that is, raising or lowering of land) and elevation datasets with projections of sea-level rise to quantify the potential inundated areas in 32 major US coastal cities. Here we show that, even when considering the current coastal-defence structures, further land area of between 1,006 and 1,389 km 2 is threatened by relative sea-level rise by 2050, posing a threat to a population of 55,000-273,000 people and 31,000-171,000 properties. Our analysis shows that not accounting for spatially variable land subsidence within the cities may lead to inaccurate projections of expected exposure. These potential consequences show the scale of the adaptation challenge, which is not appreciated in most US coastal cities.
(© 2024. The Author(s).)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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