Shifting Sands, Shifted Rights: The Beach as Contested Space

Determining rights to Florida’s sandy beaches has presented a thorny set of issues. But for many years, the public and private interests have co-existed. Now, along with population growth, sea level rise and relentless erosion have become an uncomfortable reality. The infinite variety of scenarios that sea level rise is presenting and will present along the coast will challenge our legal system in many ways.

Climate change: Ocean warming underestimated

To date, research on the effects of climate change has underestimated the contribution of seawater expansion to sea level rise due to warming of the oceans. A team of researchers has now investigated, using satellite data, that this effect was almost twice as large over the past twelve years than previously assumed. That may result in, for example, significantly increased risks of storm surges.

Coastal Louisiana added to NOAA Sea Level Rise Viewer

Scientists, regional managers, coastal planners, businesses and residents of Louisiana can now use NOAA’s popular Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding Impacts Viewer to assess their risks for coastal flooding under a variety of different scenarios.

As Sea Levels Rise, Are Coastal Nuclear Plants Ready?

Safety concerns have stoked opposition to nuclear. Reactors can’t operate safely without uninterrupted power and vast amounts of cool water, which is why they’re often located near coastlines, rivers, and lakes.

Saving Shore Communities a Risky, Expensive Proposition

The sea is rising. The land is sinking. Entire mid-Atlantic communities are anchored in between, bookended by certain disaster unless a way is found to turn back the tide and save the shore. No one knows how to fix the fix we’re in, as climate change and sea-level rise continue to assault our shores.

Bangladesh’s Kutubdia island losing battle to stem climate tide

Sundarbans

Although around 100,000 people still reside on Kutubdia, few have any illusions they are living on borrowed time, with Coast – a Bangladeshi NGO – warning the whole island could disappear underwater within 50 years. Tens of thousands have already left for good, mainly heading to the teeming capital Dhaka.