Earlier this week I helped to assess some presentations given by final year Ocean Science degree students. The presentations were the endpoint of a year-long integrating case study module in which small groups of students work together to tackle a realistic consultancy-type project relating to their degree area. Several of this year’s topics related to future changes that are likely to occur in coastal regions as a result of climate change and, in particular, sea level rise (for example, there was one project on the threat to the main south-west railway line at Dawlish and another on the need to protect or re-route the coastal road at Slapton [both locations in Devon, UK]). Anyway, I don’t want to go into details about these projects but there was one thought that struck me very firmly as I reviewed the material in front of me, namely that because significant sea-level rise is going to occur and because there will be significant impacts on infrastructure such as railway lines, roads and housing, developed coastal areas ARE going to change and it’s not going to be pretty.
There was one picture of Dawlish showing the railway line, which runs along a seawall, with nice “safe” houses perched up on the hills behind the low-lying coastal strip. It is inevitable that at some point in the not too distant future the seawall will crumble, the railway line will be lost and the low-lying area will be inundated, but the houses further back an up will be okay. The thought that struck me though was that no-one will come along and landscape the eroding and flooding coastal strip; no-one will tidy up the damage, remove the old buildings, the concrete blocks and the twisted metal etc. So once we start to lose coastal infrastructure of this type (and lose it we will) there will be a region that, for want of a better description, will look like some kind of war-zone and this, in turn, will lead to abandonment of the surrounding safer/higher areas because who will want to live next to a wasteland?
But this is only looking at a local scale… Also this week I read an interesting article in New Scientist Issue 2697 (28 February 2009) on how human civilisation will have to adapt and change to live in a warmer world. While large parts of the globe may become unable to sustain existing populations, other parts (e.g. northern latitudes) may become more suitable for human habitation either as a result of changes in temperature, rainfall, soil condition etc. I’ve been comfortable with the idea that the world will change as climate changes, but it had never struck me before that along with the serious environmental consequences, it won’t be pretty.
Tim O'Hare 