Beaches can survive sea-level rises if they have space to move.
Beaches can survive sea-level rises if they have space to move.
Experts including from the University of Sydney have questioned recent research that suggested half the world's beaches will disappear by 2100 because of global warming. The key is whether there is room to retreat inland.
An international team of coastal scientists has dismissed suggestions that half the world’s beaches could become extinct over the course of the 21st century and that Australia was one of the highest at-risk countries with 40 percent of its beaches threatened with extinction.
The claim had been made by European researchers in a paper published in Nature Climate Change in March 2020 (Sandy coastlines under threat of erosion by Vousdoukas et al). However, academics from Australia, the United Kingdom, France, South Africa, New Zealand and the United States have re-examined the data and methodology that underpinned the original study, and say they strongly disagree with its conclusion.
Continue reading at University of Sydney.
Image via University of Sydney.
