Rising sea level It is one of the effects of climate change that coastal cities like London or Los Angeles fear most. In the face of rising sea levels, all economic activities and the homes of millions of people can be literally flooded.
For this, the General Directorate of Sustainability of the Coast and the Sea has launched the Adaptation Strategy of the Spanish Coast to Climate Change. Spain is a very vulnerable country to the effects of climate change and, given the rising sea level, it has to find solutions. What is coastal climate change adaptation?
Adaptation Strategy of the Spanish Coast to Climate Change
This initiative begins with the objective of carrying out a diagnosis of the risks associated with climate change on the coasts. Once the risks posed by coastal cities have been analyzed, an attempt will be made to adopt feasible and viable measures to combat rising sea levels.
The rise in sea level is without a doubt the main consequence of climate change that most affects the coasts, since it means the loss of territory due to the regression of the coastline. In addition, this rise in sea level also causes saline intrusion into estuaries and aquifers (losing more of the stored drinking water), erosion of the coastline, direct loss of ecosystems due to the warming of sea water and an increase in the frequency and the intensity of the storms.
Because the measures against climate change established in the Paris Agreement have not yet begun to bear fruit, Spain has to seek alternatives to adaptation. The strategy proposes three types of interventions to stop these effects: physical, social and institutional. Those of a social nature are specified in the adaptation of infrastructures or the application of solutions based on nature, such as restoration of dunes or wetlands. Social measures refer to training or the exchange of information, including the creation of alert systems. Finally, those of an institutional nature affect the generation of tax incentives or regulations that promote sustainable use of the coast.
One of the big problems with this strategy is that does not have an economic forecast, rather, the proposed measures will have to be financed by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment.