Real estate across millions of acres in the United States are projected to be submerged under seawater by 2050 as reported in Sinking Tax Base Land and Property at Risk from Rising Seas.
ZME science summarizes the findings as follows:
The research group Climate Central, a nonprofit that analyzes and reports on climate science, looked at sea level rise that has been projected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), tidal boundary lines, and records of more than 50 million properties in coastal areas. When they put everything together, they found that about 650,000 individual properties are most at risk of being flooded within the next three decades.
The state of Louisiana has the largest percentage of homes and other buildings at risk, with over 25,000 properties across over one million hectares expected to fall below tide level boundaries by 2050. This means that 8.7% of the state’s total land area could be filled with seawater. However, Louisiana is far from being the only one on the list.
Florida, Texas, and North Carolina are the next three states that are more at risk, accounting for 87% of the land area expected to be lost to the sea. New York, New Jersey, and Maryland were also identified by the researchers as states that are likely to have thousands of properties, from homes to office buildings, flooded in the coming years.
Don Bain, one of the authors of the study, told The Washington Post that the analysis should be a wake-up call for communities that have to adapt to sea level rise as a direct consequence of the climate crisis. “People really haven’t internalized that yet — that ‘Hey, I’m going to have something taken away from me by the sea.’” Bain said.
Scientists have repeatedly warned that the carbon built up in the atmosphere after generations of burning fossil fuels would lead to an increasing level rise. Earlier this year, NOAA found that sea levels could rise along US coastlines by about a foot between now and 2050, which is as much change in three decades as over the past century.
NOAA says, “For businesses along the coast, knowing what to expect and how to plan for the future is critical,” said U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo. “These updated projections will help businesses, and the communities they support, understand risks and make smart investments in the years ahead.”
“This new data on sea rise is the latest reconfirmation that our climate crisis — as the President has said — is blinking ‘code red,’” said Gina McCarthy, National Climate Advisor. “We must redouble our efforts to cut the greenhouse gases that cause climate change while, at the same time, help our coastal communities become more resilient in the face of rising seas.”