Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
degradation, towards the bottom of which social safety nets collapse
while tensions and violence rise.” The submergence of fertile river fl ood-
plain agricultural land will threaten food production in some of the
world's most densely populated regions in Southeast Asia.
The Greenland ice sheet contains enough ice to raise sea level 21 feet.
24
A rise of only 3 feet would endanger 108 million people around the globe
(table 9.3). A rise of 20 feet would put signifi cant parts of America's
eastern seaboard and Gulf coast states, most of the Netherlands, and
much of Bangladesh underwater. Residents of low-lying Pacifi c islands
such as Tuvalu, Kiribati, and the Maldives will probably become the
world's fi rst global warming refugees as their homelands become
submerged.
Table 9.3
Total surface area inundated and population at risk at global and regional scales
Global
Sea level rise
(feet)
Inundated area
(square miles)
Population affected
(millions)
3.2
407,000
108
6.5
507,000
175
9.7
594,000
234
13.0
685,000
308
16.2
774,000
376
19.5
847,000
431
Southeastern United States
3.2
24,040
2.6
6.5
40,340
5.5
9.7
53,017
8.7
13.0
63,597
13.2
16.2
73,579
17.1
19.5
81,214
19.3
Southeast Asia and Northern Australia
3.2
134,204
46.7
6.5
164,529
86.1
9.7
186,550
114.0
13.0
207,498
153.1
16.5
227,149
183.4
19.0
243,369
209.1
Source:
EOS, American Geophysical Union, February 27, 2007
