Rise in Sea Level to Affect 36 Million People in India By 2050

New Delhi: Rise in sea level may put some of India’s greatest cities in the flood-risk zone, affecting a total of 36 million people in the country by 2050 - about 31 million more than previously thought, warns a study. Worldwide, rising sea levels could within three decades push chronic floods to affect 300 million people, according to the research by New Jersey-based science organization Climate Central.

The researchers found that West Bengal and coastal Odisha are projected to be particularly vulnerable to floods by 2050, as is the city of Kolkata. The findings are based on a new digital elevation model called CoastalDEM which shows that many of the world’s coastlines are far lower than has been generally known and that sea-level rise could affect hundreds of millions of more people in the coming decades than previously understood. Climate Central produced the model using machine learning. The threat is concentrated in coastal Asia and could have profound economic and political consequences within the lifetimes of people alive today, showed the findings of the study published in the journal Nature Communications. As a result of heat-trapping pollution from human activities, rising sea levels could within three decades push chronic floods to affect 300 million people China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand are home to the most people on land projected to be below average annual coastal flood levels by 2050. (IANS)

Also Read: United Nations (UN) Warns of One Meter Sea Level Rise By 2100

Also Watch: Guwahati Paid Tribute To the Victims of The 2008 Serial Bomb Blasts