By 200,000 properties could be abandoned by 2050 due to rising sea levels
Nearly 200,000 properties in England may have to be abandoned due to rising sea levels by 2050, a report says.
Homes that cannot be saved by defences such as sea walls due to cost will be lost to the tide, with most at-risk areas including North Somerset, Sedgemoor, Wyre, North East Lincolnshire, and Swale.
About a third of England’s coast will be put under pressure by sea-level rise, the report says.
The study comes after warnings from the head of the Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan, that many homes would be impossible or uneconomic to save, and whole communities would have to move inland.
Bevan told a conference last week: “In the long term, climate change means that some of our communities – both in this country and around the world – cannot stay where they are. That is because while we can come back safely and build back better after most river flooding, there is no coming back for land that coastal erosion has taken away or which a rising sea level has put permanently or frequently under water.”
He added: “In some places, the right answer – in economic, strategic and human terms – will have to be to move communities away from danger rather than to try and protect them from the inevitable impacts of a rising sea level.”
The value of the homes at risk is in the tens of billions of pounds, and the sea level rises that will bring about the flooding are now almost inevitable, given the increasing pace of climate breakdown.
Sea levels around the English coast are forecast to be about 35cm higher by 2050 while the erosion of foreshores could lead to higher waves, especially during storms.
The report, published in the journal Ocean and Coastal Management, stated that raised sea levels not only increase the risk of flooding on the coast but also accelerate coastal erosion through larger more powerful waves.
The study for the first time looks at places where the costs of improving defences may be too high or technically impossible.
It found that by 2050 assuming a conservative sea-level rise caused by temperature increases of 2C by 2100, up to 160,000 properties are at risk of needing relocation. That’s in addition to between 30,000 and 35,000 properties that have already been identified as at risk.
