The number of people harmed by floods will double worldwide by 2030, a new analysis shows.
The World Resources Institute, a global research group, found that 147 million people would be hit by floods from rivers and coasts annually by the end of the decade, compared with 72 million people just 10 years ago.
Damages to urban property will soar from US$174 billion to US$712 billion per year.
By 2050, “the numbers will be catastrophic,” the report said. A total of 221 million people would be at risk, with the toll in cities costing US$1.7 trillion yearly.
When the institute first developed its flood modeling tool in 2014, the predictions felt “like a fantasy,” institute director of water initiatives Charlie Iceland said.
“But now we’re actually seeing this increase in magnitude of the damages in real time,” Iceland said. “We’ve never seen these types of floods before.”
Floods are getting worse because of the climate crisis, decisions to populate high-risk areas and land sinkage from the overuse of groundwater.
The worst flooding would come in South Asia and Southeast Asia, including in Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, and Indonesia, and China, where large populations are vulnerable.
The effects would be less dire, but still increasingly serious, in the US, where the risk is highest for coastal flooding.
The US ranks third among countries with the most to lose from urban coastal flooding in the next 10 years, after China and Indonesia.
Coastal flood damage in the US would soar from US$1.8 billion in 2010 to US$38 billion in 2050, with half the country’s exposed population in just three states — Louisiana, Massachusetts and Florida.
What are now once in a lifetime floods could become daily occurrences for most of the US coastline, according to a separate study.
That is because hurricanes are stronger, seas are higher and rain patterns are changing, all because of global warming caused by humans.
River floods would worsen in the US, but those damages would remain about the same, as large investments would be made in flood protection.
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant