Select Peer-Reviewed Scientific Papers
New elevation data triple estimates of global vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding
Authors: Scott A. Kulp, Benjamin H. Strauss
Journal: Nature Communications
Publication Date: 2019
Flooded Future: Global vulnerability to sea level rise worse than previously understood
- As a result of heat-trapping pollution from human activities, rising sea levels could within three decades push chronic floods higher than land currently home to 300 million people
- By 2100, areas now home to 200 million people could fall permanently below the high tide line
- The new figures are the result of an improved global elevation dataset produced by Climate Central using machine learning, and revealing that coastal elevations are significantly lower than previously understood across wide areas
- The threat is concentrated in coastal Asia and could have profound economic and political consequences within the lifetimes of people alive today
- Findings are documented in a new peer-reviewed paper in the journal Nature Communications
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Report: Web Version and PDF
Ocean at the Door: New Homes and the Rising Sea
Description: Recent housing growth rates are faster in ten-year flood-risk zones in a third of all coastal states. This report was updated in July 2019 with new data.
Date: July 2019