Due to climate change, coastal communities and ecosystems worldwide are increasingly threatened by rising sea levels. Global warming is altering the ocean water due to thermal expansion, melting glaciers, and melting polar ice caps. These all contribute to sea level rise. This process takes time, but many of the coastal areas have already started recording the negative impacts of the rising sea levels.
Rising sea levels are proving to be a threat to several individuals, but the ones who are most in danger are those who live by the sea. Cities like Miami and New Orleans are prone to more flooding from rainstorms and high tides. Higher sea levels create storm surges, which are dangerous to the economy due to the destruction of property and lives. Several countries like Maldives are likely to be submerged in water in the future if the climate crisis isn’t handled.
Ecosystems that are found in the coastal regions are also at risk. Coastal habitats (mangroves, wetlands, coral reefs, etc.) that protect the coast from storms, water filtration, and places habitable for marine life, may be underwater in the future due to sea level rise. Communities that depend on these ecosystems for food, tourism, and as protective walls at the coast suffer when such ecosystems drown or get eroded. The loss of these natural barriers from flooding and erosion encourages more flooding and eroding at the coast, putting them in more danger than they already are.
The social costs of the rise in sea levels are huge. Recurrent flooding causes corrosion of infrastructure with high costs, lots of industries getting abandoned due to the land having a decrease in value, and people having to relocate. Dealing with the consequences of such sea level changes is even more difficult in developing countries because they have very few resources to deal with situations like these.
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