Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Rising seas will swallow New Orleans. People need to start relocating
now, scientists say
Some coastal regions in the world have already started relocating due
to sea level rise and sinking land. Tuvalu, a Pacific island nation, is
organizing the world’s first planned migration of the entire country to
Australia. Jakarta, Indonesia, is relocating the nation’s administrative capital
functions to another island. The USA is no exception. New Orleans, famous for
its lively jazz, vibrant Creole culture, and historic French Quarter, sits in a
low-lying basin, mostly below sea level. It is surrounded by extensive, highly
vulnerable wetlands that are crucial for buffering storm surges, but they are
rapidly disappearing due to human activity, land subsidence, and rising sea
levels. About 75% of its remaining wetlands are predicted to be lost, and the inland
could retreat by as far as 100 km. New Orleans has already lost about a quarter
of its population since the 2005 Hurricane Katrina, which submerged 80% of the
city and killed nearly 1,400 people. As the city’s residents move out, tax
revenues, public services, and home values decline, and as a result, empty or
abandoned properties will increase. As protective wetlands disappear, land
sinks further, and sea level rises, New Orleans is facing an existential
challenge, as critical and urgent as that of the Pacific Islands.
Read the article and learn what is going on in the historic capital of Louisiana.
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