Drawn Up: The Biggest Environmental Problems of 2021 The climate crisis is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, and we are not ready for it. While the crisis has many factors that play a role in its exacerbation

10. Sea Level Rise
A recent paper published in Nature tripled the previous estimates of global vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding. Most sea level rise projections prior to this one fell below 1 to 1.5 meters, but it seems now that 2 meters is possible. Were that to happen, the authors of the study estimate that 680 million people would find themselves displaced, ushering in a gradual yet inexorable rearrangement of the coastal world. 
Up to 3 billion people depend on the ocean and its ecosystems, and as a result, a massive amount of infrastructure and operations have been set up on low lying coastal land. Little attention has been given to rising sea levels, meaning adaptation will be arduous and costly.
Rising sea levels also make storm surges more potent, thus increasing flood potential in storm susceptible places like Bangladesh, the US and many others. In fact, over 70% of all natural disasters since 2000 were water-related, so their itensification spells trouble for people all over the world (Germany was hit with an unexpectedly powerful flood just a few days prior to publishing). 
FOr a more visual example, let’s look at Shanghai’s megalopolis, built around the low-lying Yangtze river delta.

Data from CoastalDEM, Kulp & Strauss (2020).
As the 4th most populous city in the world, it could find itself so vulnerable to flooding that the whole area would have to be evacuated, or massively engineered to resist, by the end of the century. Sea level rise, while slow, is undeniably one of the biggest environmental problem on our hands and we need to prepare.
If you want to see more, we’ve made similar coastal flooding projection maps for 70 different locations around the world.
What you can do: if you are deciding where to live, be aware that a low coastal area may not be viable within the next few decades. If you do live in one, get in touch with your local representatives to find out what they are doing to prepare.