Real Estate

Rising sea levels threaten 1.5m English properties


Rising sea levels will put 1.5m properties at risk of coastal flooding while those threatened by coastal erosion will rise almost 15 times by 2085 compared with today, the Committee on Climate Change has warned.

A report by the CCC found that it would be uneconomical to protect about 1,600km of coast — or 29 per cent of the English coastline — if sea levels rose by an expected 1 metre by the end of this century.

“There are a lot of places where it is going to not be affordable to protect them in future,” said Professor Jim Hall, a lead author of the report, which was released on Friday by the CCC, an independent government panel.

The report compares existing shoreline management plans with rising sea-level models, and found that many areas that have a “hold the line” policy of coastal defence will become prohibitively expensive to protect.

“The current plans are unrealistic,” said Prof Hall. “There are lots of places which now think they are going to be protected, but given the way the economics works that is not going to happen.”

The CCC said it would cost at least £18bn to implement all the existing plans for shoreline defences. “The Shoreline Management Plans have not been completely realistic with respect to the costs and benefits, so there is maybe a bit of denial going on,” said Prof Hall.

More than 1.5m properties will be exposed to coastal flooding by 2085 if the world heats up by 4C, according to the report, causing more than £500m in annual damages to homes and businesses.

The areas that are most at risk of coastal flooding include Lincolnshire, the Wash in East Anglia, and the Essex estuaries, say Prof Hall.

The threat of coastal erosion is highest along the “soft” coastline of sand, gravel and clay found in the east and south of the country, such as the Holderness coast north of the Humber, the North Norfolk coast and the eastern end of the south coast.

“This is a clarion call to say that we really need to have the systematic thinking to improve the situation,” said Baroness Brown of Cambridge, chair of the adaptation committee of the CCC.

A house on Hemsby beach in Norfolk after high winds and waves eroded the dunes on which it sits © Chris J Ratcliffe/Getty Images

“Our coastal communities are particularly vulnerable,” she added. “They will probably be less resilient than our other communities because they are generally older and also less affluent than the general population.”

In areas where coastal defences such as sea walls become unsustainable, restoring the coastline to its natural state — such as dunes, beaches and marshes — could be one solution, said Prof Hall.



READ SOURCE

Leave a Reply

This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you accept our use of cookies.