The Asian Development Bank's (ADB) recent report raised the alarm over the potential sea level that could exceed two meters in the Asia-Pacific by 2100, noting the crucial role of climate policies and infrastructure management.
There are many factors to consider in the sea-level rise, including human-caused climate change and global warming affecting ice sheets and glaciers melting. However, the ADB report noted the impact of groundwater withdrawal, the warming of the oceans, and the double whammy of the sinking of land. The report raises the alarm over the threat it could pose.
According to the article, the ADB report was presented in the annual board meeting on September 26 to 30, 2022, in which the report looked into the available geological evidence and hydrographic records.
Two meters of sea-level rise
The report recommended that the imaginary waterline demarcation in the Asia Pacific region should raise to two meters to improve and develop resilience against the threat of rising sea levels, noting that the current or existing is only one meter.
The rising sea level has been a concern for scientists and environmentalists because of the threat of worsening human-caused pollution and climate change. The report showed that most islands observed on the Pacific Island are subsiding based on the data since 2000. With this, the impact or effect of the sea-level rise could be magnified.
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According to the article, study's Anthony Kiem explained that the sea-level rise found in the Asia Pacific region could worsen the impact of climate change, noting that it could pose a critical challenge to the new and existing infrastructure.
Keim is also a professor of hydro-climatology at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He is also a part of the external technical reviewer for managing the sea-level rise and infrastructure risk on the Pacific Island.
Furthermore, the report said that the Pacific Region Infrastructure Facility noted countries in the Pacific islands. It revealed countries have a low adapting capacity to climate change and infrastructure management.
According to the study, it shows the following scenarios:
- By 2100, a long-term scenario reveals that sea-level rise could be two meters.
- By 2050, short-to-medium-term projects show 0.5 meters.
- It is also possible that for projects with a lifetime beyond 2100, scenarios could occur of greater than two meters.
Infrastructure management
The ADB report said significance that governments should prepare for suitable adjustments to any infrastructures they will build, noting that sea-level increase projections by 2100 in the Asia-Pacific.
Moreover, the article noted that the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (AR6) revealed that the projected global mean of sea level rise would be possible to reach 1.7 to 6.8 meters by 2300.
What is alarming about the report showed that the sea-level rise would exceed two meters by 2100, which could be not only a one-meter sea level rise based on the reports.
With the threat of increasing sea levels, countries in the Asia Pacific must equip themselves with infrastructure management programs to predict the impact of hazards and develop the adaptive capacity to climate change.
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