Human impacts of rising oceans will extend well beyond coasts

EurekAlert cites a study about one instance of a far-reaching issue. There's the impact, and then there are the consequences of the impact: Identifying the human impact of rising sea levels is far more complex than just looking at coastal cities on a map. Rather, estimates that are based on current, static population data can greatly misrepresent the true extent – and the pronounced variability – of the human toll of climate change, say University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers. "Not all places and not all people in those places will be impacted equally," says Katherine Curtis, an assistant professor of community and environmental sociology at UW-Madison.

In a new online report, which will publish in an upcoming issue of the peer-reviewed journal Population and Environment, Curtis and her colleague Annemarie Schneider examine the impacts of rising oceans as one element of how a changing climate will affect humans. "We're linking economic and social vulnerability with environmental vulnerability to better understand which areas and their populations are most vulnerable," Curtis says.

They used existing climate projections and maps to identify areas at risk of inundation from rising sea levels and storm surges, such as the one that breached New Orleans levees after Hurricane Katrina, then coupled those vulnerability assessments with projections for future populations.

It's a deceptively challenging process, the authors say. "Time scales for climate models and time scales for human demography are completely different," explains Schneider, part of the Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment at UW-Madison's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. "Future climate scenarios typically span 50 to 100 years or more. That's unreasonable for demographic projections, which are often conducted on the order of decades."

…"Adaptation and mitigation strategies are developed and implemented at a local level. Part of the problem with large-scale population and environmental impact estimates is that they mask the local variation that is necessary in order for a local area to effectively respond," Curtis says.…Even using rough estimates of sea level rise, their analysis makes clear that planning ahead for mitigation and adaptation will be crucial, Schneider says…

Crashing waves, shot by Fir0002, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License