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Major coastal African cities among most vulnerable to sea level rises
Written by: Laurie Goering
LONDON (AlertNet) - Low-lying Asian nations from Bangladesh to Vietnam have long been thought the most vulnerable to damage if climate change brings rising seas and worsening storm surges. But a range of major coastal cities in Africa - particularly Lagos and Alexandria - may also bear the brunt of climate-related changes over the next century, according to a report by the Centre for Global Development . The think tank's study, which projects the vulnerability of coastal populations to storm surges if sea level rises in line with U.N. projections, lists Manila as the city most at risk from increasingly stormy seas. But Egypt's Alexandria and Nigeria's Lagos come second and third, followed by Monrovia in Liberia. The cities rounding out the top ten include Karachi in Pakistan, Aden in Yemen, Jakarta in Indonesia, Port Said in Egypt, Khulna in Bangladesh and Kolkata in India. The assessment of vulnerability is based on each city or country's specific geographic vulnerability as well as its population judged to be at risk and the amount of its economic activity located within the danger zone. The results suggest "gross inequality in the heightened impact of future disasters," the report noted, with a small number of countries and large cities likely to suffer the worst impacts. OUTDATED SYTSTEMS Many of the cities considered most at-risk have storm water drainage systems that are outdated or inadequate, particularly in slum zones, the report noted. A breakdown of the potentially worse-impacted cities by region also shows that just a few countries - Mozambique and Ivory Coast in sub-Saharan Africa, for instance - may suffer disproportional damage. Together they are home to half of the expected top 10 affected cities in the region. The report, designed to assist developing world planners and aid agencies, assumes that sea level rise will reach a meter or more by the end of the century, in line with projections in reports by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and that warming oceans will intensify cyclone activity and boost storm surges. Such changes would put 21 percent of Alexandria's population and 28 percent of Lagos residents within reach of storm surges, according to the study, which assessed 84 coastal countries and 577 cities in five developing regions. Financial losses as a result of worsening storms could hit $85 billion in the Far East and Pacific region over the coming century, the think tank projected. The Middle East and North Africa are projected to see losses of $12.7 billion and sub-Saharan Africa $1.8 billion.
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