One in 50 people living in two dozen coastal cities in the United States could experience significant flooding by 2050, according to Virginia Tech-led research.
One in 50 people living in two dozen coastal cities in the United States could experience significant flooding by 2050, according to Virginia Tech-led research.
Published in Nature, the study combines satellite-obtained measurements of sinking land, also known as subsidence, with sea-level rise projections and tide charts to provide a new comprehensive look at the potential for flooding in a combined 32 cities along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts. The study projects that in the next three decades as many as 500,000 people could be affected as well as a potential 1 in 35 privately owned properties damaged by flooding. The study also highlights the racial and socioeconomic demographics of those potentially affected.
“One of the challenges we have with communicating the issue of sea-level rise and land subsidence broadly is it often seems like a long-term problem, like something whose impacts will only manifest at the end of the century, which many people may not care about,” said lead author Leonard Ohenhen, a graduate student working with Associate Professor Manoochehr Shirzaei at Virginia Tech’s Earth Observation and Innovation Lab. “What we’ve done here is focused the picture on the short term, just 26 years from now.”
Read more at Virginia Tech
Image: The study provides a new comprehensive look at the flood risks for 32 cities on three coasts by 2050. Image courtesy of Leonard Ohenhen.
