- White Sox heading for worst season in MLB history
- China the top challenge in US history: senior diplomat
- Hong Kong democracy tycoon's son warns time running out
- New migraine drugs no better than cheap painkillers: big study
- Sean 'Diddy' Combs again denied bail in sex trafficking case
- Brewers clinch division title as MLB playoff race heats up
- Man City blunted by 'giant' Inter in Champions League stalemate
- US stocks dip despite larger Fed interest rate cut
- Man City held by Inter as PSG pinch win in Champions League
- All Blacks recall Beauden Barrett for Australia Test
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 20, wound 450
- Spurs late show saves Postecoglou blushes at Coventry
- PSG snatch late goal to beat Champions League debutants Girona
- Gittens' late double gives Dortmund Champions League win at Brugge
- Man City blunted by Inter in Champions League stalemate
- Hidden talent: French Olympic star Marchand opts for disguise
- MrBeast named in California lawsuit over 'Beast Games' show
- Gauff splits with Gilbert as coach after 14-month run
- Hundreds of thousands at risk in Sudan's El-Fasher: UN
- Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to new sex crime charge
- Venezuelan opposition candidate says letter conceding election was coerced
- Ukraine official claims Russian advance in Kursk has been 'stopped'
- X update allows app to bypass Brazil ban: internet providers
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill 14, wound 450
- US Fed makes aggressive rate cut, weeks before election
- Arsenal's Odegaard faces lengthy injury absence
- India coal expansion risks massive methane growth: report
- China the top challenge in US history, top diplomat says
- US Fed makes larger half-point cut in first reduction since 2020
- Ronaldo's Al Nassr appoint former AC Milan boss Pioli
- Ainslie 'relieved' as British book place in Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Struggling Roma replace sacked icon De Rossi with Ivan Juric
- Women's NBA will add 15th team in Portland in 2026
- Brazil fires need harsher punishment: environmental police boss
- Boeing to start large temporary furloughs amid Seattle strike
- Fears of all-out war as new Lebanon device blasts kill nine, wound 300
- 'Emergency' declared over falling UK butterfly numbers
- McIlroy outlines threats to golf peace deal
- Stock markets, dollar slip before US rate decision
- Russian advance in Kursk 'stopped': Ukraine official to AFP
- UN members demand end to 'unlawful' Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories
- Snapchat pushes 'safer' platform image, but not everyone agrees
- Three dead, 100 wounded in new wave of Lebanon device explosions
- So where does the oceans' plastic waste come from?
- Allied war heroes buried in Netherlands... 80 years on
- Marsh coy over Australia's choice to open alongside Head
- New London sculpture pays tribute to trans community
- Lebanon doctors tell of horror after pager blasts
- McIlroy eyes Wentworth glory after Irish Open collapse
- Italy seen overtaking France as world's largest wine producer
RBGPF | 5.79% | 60.5 | $ | |
BCC | 1.33% | 137.06 | $ | |
AZN | 0.06% | 78.58 | $ | |
GSK | -0.31% | 42.43 | $ | |
SCS | 0.71% | 14.11 | $ | |
NGG | -0.46% | 70.05 | $ | |
BTI | -0.34% | 37.88 | $ | |
CMSC | 0.02% | 25.055 | $ | |
RELX | -0.82% | 47.37 | $ | |
CMSD | -0.12% | 24.98 | $ | |
RIO | -0.02% | 62.91 | $ | |
JRI | 0.45% | 13.44 | $ | |
BCE | 3.09% | 35.61 | $ | |
VOD | 0.49% | 10.23 | $ | |
RYCEF | 1.37% | 6.55 | $ | |
BP | -0.37% | 32.43 | $ |
Climate change, population threaten 'staggering' US flood losses by 2050
Climate change is on track to ramp up the annual cost of US flood damage more than 25 percent by 2050, according to new research Monday that warns disadvantaged communities will likely bear the brunt of the financial burden.
The study published in the journal Nature Climate Change used new flood models to map out the present and future impact of sea level rise, tropical cyclones and changing weather patterns.
Losses include destruction projected to hit homes and businesses. Researchers warned that even more people are expected to move into areas at growing risk of inundation.
"Climate change combined with shifting populations present a double whammy of flood risk danger and the financial implications are staggering," said lead author Oliver Wing, of the University of Bath's Cabot Institute for the Environment.
Wing said the findings should be a "call to action" for both a reduction in emissions and efforts to adapt to accelerating climate risks "to reduce the devastating financial impact flooding wreaks on people's lives."
Researchers used nationwide property asset data, information on communities and flood projections to estimate flood risk across the US.
The study showed that poorer communities with a proportionally larger white population currently face the steepest losses.
But future growth in flood risk is expected to have a greater impact on African American communities on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.
"The mapping clearly indicates Black communities will be disproportionately affected in a warming world, in addition to the poorer White communities which predominantly bear the historical risk," said Wing.
"Both of these findings are of significant concern."
- 'Unacceptable' risks -
Average annual flood losses were forecast to increase by 26.4 percent, from $32 billion currently, to $40.6 billion in 2050, based on 2021 dollar values.
The researchers said these figures are "essentially locked in climatically", meaning that even if emissions fall dramatically they would still be the same.
They also warned that expanding populations in the US would also significantly increase the flood risk, eclipsing even the impact of climate change.
With inundations expected to intensify in areas where populations are also increasing, the researchers said average annual exposure of the US population to floods is expected to grow to more than seven million by 2050, a 97-percent increase from current levels.
It said increases in climate-enhanced exposure was particularly concentrated along the US East Coast, with existing Texas and Florida residents seeing a roughly 50-percent increase in flood exposure by 2050.
In terms of increased flood risk due to population growth, the researchers highlighted intensified development on existing floodplains, which they said was "relatively severe in the currently sparsely populated central Prairie States and the Deep South".
The study said even developments currently considered low risk may be in areas expected to see a heightened flood risk in the coming decades.
"Current flood risk in western society is already unacceptably high, yet climate and population change threaten to inflate these losses significantly," said co-author Paul Bates, a professor of hydrology at the Cabot Institute for the Environment.
"The relatively short timescales over which this increase will take place mean we cannot rely on decarbonisation to reduce the risk so we have to adapt better, both to the situation now and for the future."
H.Seidel--BTB