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Half of the world's sandy beaches can fade throughout this century, submerged by rising sea levels and punished by extreme weather events. It is the main conclusion of a study prepared by a group of European researchers from several institutions, including the University of Cádiz , whose results have been published Monday in Nature Climate Change .
The sandy coastlines occupy more than a third of the world's coasts and fulfill a key function as a natural barrier against wind and waves , in addition to having an enormous social and economic importance for local communities. But erosion, the advance of the oceans and changes in weather patterns are a threat to these ecosystems, as well as to coastal populations and infrastructure across the planet.
The authors have analyzed the evolution of the coast thanks to satellite imagery between 1984 and 2015 , taking into account, in addition, the changes caused by both geological and anthropogenic factors. They have also considered climate data for the past 82 years, as well as estimates of sea level rise and have worked with millions of simulations on the effects of storms .
In this way, they have achieved "the first global assessment for sandy coasts that includes all the key parameters", with estimates of coastal erosion in several possible climatic scenarios, depending on the increase in temperatures for the coming decades. The research has been promoted by the Joint Research Center of the European Commission.
Scientists stress that a very high percentage of the most threatened ecosystems are found in densely populated areas , which makes it more urgent to design and implement effective adaptation measures in the face of the changes that are taking place.
"We are not doing enough," warns Michalis Vousdoukas of the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, the first author of the work. "The impact of climate change and sea level rise is unprecedented, so we have to prepare for this new situation ."
The study also notes that mitigating greenhouse gas emissions - mainly responsible for rising global temperatures - would help reduce coastal erosion by up to 40% . Although the authors clarify in the text that "even with a slowdown in global warming, society will have to adapt to a considerable loss of sandy beaches."
Spain already feels the effects
By country, the results show that Australia will be the most affected country in terms of total lost area (almost 12,000 km). In percentage, Gambia and Guinea-Bissau would suffer the most severe effects, as they can see more than 60% of its sandy coastline disappear.
Canada, Chile, Mexico, China and the United States are also among the most vulnerable territories. "There are technical solutions available, but that implies that local experts should evaluate and choose the most appropriate for local conditions."
For Spain , the projection of the retreat of the coast is 86 meters on average for the year 2100 , in the worst case scenario, in case the world governments do not take adequate measures to limit global warming.
"By transferring it to a real case, in the city of Cádiz, the stretches with greater width of dry beach now have around 80 meters, so we would run out of dry beach before 2100 ", explains Theocharis Plomaritis, researcher at the Faculty of Marine and Environmental Sciences of the Cadiz University. A projection that would be reduced by 39% in the case of meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement , something that would limit the setback to 60 meters. " And Spain is not one of the most affected countries ," qualifies the researcher.
Gloria's damage
Even so, the Spanish coast is caught between two trends: one from the sea , driven by erosion, the progress of water and the increasingly severe storms; the other land, derived from the constant urban development on the coast. "In general, there are no major differences between the different coasts of the Peninsula , which means that the impacts will be determined by the level of occupation and the use of the spaces," explains Plomaritis. "That is why impact mitigation measures have to be designed within a regional or local framework."
Previous research has already indicated several points of the Spanish sandy coast as especially vulnerable. One is the aforementioned Gulf of Cádiz , due to its low slope terrain and high population density, others are the Balearic Islands and the Ebro Delta . In this region, for example, last month the waters of the Mediterranean reached up to three kilometers inland, driven by the torrential rains of the Gloria storm, which caused severe damage to the local ecosystem and rice crops.
Gloria also left shocking images of Tossa de Mar (Girona), where the beach disappeared under the sea, which eventually flooded the streets of the city . "If we add to all these scenarios the effect of the storms, we can see that progressively we will be without much of the damping effect provided by the beaches, " Plomaritis warns.
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