The impact of sea level rise on developing countries: a comparative analysis

By Susmita Dasgupta, B. Laplante, C. Meisner, David Wheeler, Jianping Yan. 2007

995 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Sea-level rise (SLR) due to climate change is a serious global threat: The scientific evidence is now overwhelming. Continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions and associated global warming could well promote SLR of 1 m in this century, and unexpectedly rapid breakup of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets might produce a 3–5 m SLR. In this paper, we assess the consequences of continued SLR for 84 coastal developing countries. Geographic Information System (GIS) software has been used to overlay the best available, spatially disaggregated global data on critical impact elements (land, population, agriculture, urban extent, wetlands, and GDP), with the inundation zones projected for 1–5 m SLR. Our results reveal that tens of millions of people in the developing world are likely to be displaced by SLR within this century; and accompanying economic and ecological damage will be severe for many. At the country level results are extremely skewed, with severe impacts limited to a relatively small number of countries.

Subfields: Atmospheric Science, Oceanography

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/81ddf3e8a41b433c24cbafcc8beadade32927933

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atmospheric Science

In Oceanography

Citations in the corpus

REDD+ on the ground: A case book of subnational initiatives across the globe (2014, background): “A World Bank study claimed that Vietnam is in the top five countries most threatened by sea level rise (Dasgupta et al. 2007).”
Natural Disasters, Household Welfare, and Resilience: Evidence from Rural Vietnam (2015, background): “A study by Dasgupta et al. (2009) on the potential impacts of sea level rise in 84 coastal developing countries shows that a one meter rise in sea level would affect about seven percent of agricultural land and 11 percent of the population, which could reduce the agriculture sector‟s GDP by 10…”
Future Coastal Population Growth and Exposure to Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Flooding - A Global Assessment (2015, background): “At global to regional scales, various studies estimated the population living in the LECZ [1, 5]; assessed the coastal population possibly impacted by a certain rise in sea level [27, 28]; and identified the people living in the storm surge hazard zone that is subject to re-occurring coastal flood e”
Estimating global damages from sea level rise with the Coastal Impact and Adaptation Model (CIAM) (2015, background): “…flooding, saltwater intrusion into aquifers and surface water resources, and degradation of coastal wetlands that are rich in habitat and biological diversity and provide important services such as flood protection (Dasgupta et al, 2007; Nicholls et al, 2007; Nicholls, 2011; Hinkel et al, 2013b).”
Review of the literature on the links between biodiversity and climate change: impacts, adaptation and mitigation. (2009, background): “Even a one metre rise in sea level, the lowest expected this century, could displace nearly six million people across South Asia and 37 million people along the river deltas of East Asia (Dasgupta et al. 2007).”
Quantifying Vulnerability to Climate Change: Implications for Adaptation Assistance - Working Paper 240 (2011, positive): “2.2 Vulnerability to Sea Level Rise This section extends previous work with co-authors (Dasgupta et al., 2009a,b) to much broader coverage of coastal and small island states.”
Over the hills and further away from coast: global geospatial patterns of human and environment over the 20th–21st centuries (2016, background): “The greatest challenge will be faced by the people living less than 5 m above sea level, as they are most affected by sea level rise (Dasgupta et al 2009, Church et al 2013).”
Evaluating the Economic Cost of Coastal Flooding (2018, methodology): “That is, expression (9) assumes that today’s observed market value of structures ignores future losses due to inundation.”
Climate change and internal migration patterns in Bangladesh: an agent-based model (2012, background): “The vulnerability of Bangladesh to sea level rise, whether directly or through storms and cyclones, has also been acknowledged by many authors (e.g., Ali, 1996; Dasgupta et al., 2009, 2011).”
Measuring household resilience to floods: A case study in the Vietnamese Mekong River Delta (2013, background): “There is additional evidence that a rise in sea level due to climate change will increase the risk of flooding in the MRD, which will affect the livelihoods of millions of people (Wassmann et al. 2004, Dasgupta et al. 2007, Eastham et al. 2008, Reid 2008).”
The economic impact of substantial sea-level rise (2010, background): “Third, sea-level rise impacts are often presented without considering coastal protection (e.g., Dasgupta et al., 2009).”