Flooding & sea level rise

"The problems of our times are extraordinary," said Ibraham Mohamed Solih, President of the Maldives, an Indian Ocean island nation threatened by the rising waters of climate change.

Due to the consequent risks posed by rising sea levels, the government pledged in 2009 to make the Maldives a carbon-neutral country by 2019.

The land on which 10% of the world’s population lives could be lost to sea-level rise if carbon emission trends continue, new maps and visualizations show. Fifty major cities, mostly in Asia, and at least one large nation on every continent but Australia and Antarctica are at risk. Many small island nations are threatened with near-total loss of their land.

Read the article at The Guardian.

When Hurricane Harvey struck Southeast Texas in 2017, it provided a real-life stress test of the plans for flood risk in a highly vulnerable region. Southeast Texas failed that test...

Now, an exhaustive report out Monday shows that nationally, there are at least 6 million households that are unaware they’re living in homes that have a 1 percent chance of flooding in each year — putting them within a “100-year” flood zone. This is nearly 70 percent more homes at substantial risk of flooding than are within the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Special Flood Hazard Areas, a designation that determines eligibility for the National Flood Insurance Program.

This count is set to grow substantially in coming decades due to the effects of climate change, including sea level rise, which will make hurricane storm surges more damaging, as well as precipitation extremes.

Click to read the article st Washington Post