The village of Hemsby, County Yarmouth, on the coast of the British island of Norfolk (Getty)
Many regions in the world suffer from the phenomenon of "coastal erosion", which is caused by tidal movement, sea currents and rising water levels due to climate change.
Residents of the village of Hemsby, in the Yarmouth area of the British province of Norfolk, live a daily nightmare for fear that the waters of the North Sea will suddenly submerge their homes as a result of coastal erosion, or what is known as "marine erosion."
For more than a decade, village residents have been trying to obtain permission to build a sea berm or rock barrier to stop land erosion, to no avail, until the county authorities - located in the southeast of the United Kingdom - informed the residents last October that there was not enough government funding for the project. Its cost is estimated at 20 million pounds sterling.
In a new effort to save the village, 17,000 people signed a petition last January, which was adopted by the “Save the Hemsby Coast” group to finance the project, and was handed over to the local authorities, according to what the British newspaper “The Guardian” reported today, Thursday, February 15. 2024.
Demolition of houses in the village of Hemsby, in the Yarmouth district of the British county of Norfolk (Getty)
The government says that the village, which has a population of 3,000 people and rises to 25,000 in summer, does not meet the funding criteria because it does not contain enough homes, to which the group responded by saying that the coastal resort contributes 80 million pounds of tourism to Norfolk's economy every year.
According to experts, sea walls and other defenses that trap sand can slow the sea's advance and its swallowing of land, but at a huge cost that exceeds what the government has already announced to spend 5.2 billion pounds before 2027 on defenses against coastal erosion and flooding.
Climate change: serious consequences for coastal cities
The phenomenon of coastal erosion is increasing with the intensification of the pace of climate change that the world is witnessing, as rising sea and ocean water levels increase the effects of “marine erosion.”
According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the annual rate of sea level rise has doubled in the 20th century from 1.4 millimeters per year in 2006 to 3.6 millimeters in 2015.
International experts at the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in Stockholm issued a serious report in September 2014 predicting that the water level in the world’s seas would rise by about 82 centimeters due to the melting of snow at the poles by the year 2100, warning of dire consequences for population centers adjacent to the water.
According to a study published in 2019 in the journal Nature Communications, up to 250 million people across continents could be directly affected by rising water levels by the year 2100.
According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Maldives - which consists of 1,200 small atolls and is inhabited by about 540,000 people - will lose about 77% of its land area by 2100 if sea level rises by only 45 centimetres, because it is rising at an average Only one meter above sea level.
The state of Kiribati - a small island located in the heart of the Pacific Ocean with a population of approximately 120 thousand people - is considered to have a very low average elevation estimated at 1.8 meters above sea level, and thus Kiribati will lose two-thirds of its territory if sea level rises by 90 centimetres. .
According to the Science and Development Network, approximately 3 million Pacific Islanders who live within 10 kilometers of the coast may need to leave their lands before the end of the century.
Jakarta, Indonesia, “the fastest sinking city in the world”
Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, is one of the clearest examples of rising sea levels, which causes great difficulties in the world.
According to Earth.org, a non-profit environmental organization based in Hong Kong, Jakarta, with a population of about 10 million people, has won the title of “the fastest sinking city in the world,” as it sinks by 5 to 10 centimeters every year due to... “Excessive drainage of groundwater.”
According to the World Economic Forum, much of Jakarta could be underwater by 2050, and by 2100 Dhaka in Bangladesh (22.4 million people), Lagos in Nigeria (15.3 million people), and Bangkok in Thailand (9 million people) could be underwater. population) completely, or vast areas of land will be submerged in water and unusable.
Based on recent projections, many American cities may face serious problems by 2050, and vast areas of land may become uninhabitable.
According to research conducted by Climate Central, New York City is considered the most vulnerable, and the report states that by 2050, nearly half a million New Yorkers will live on “threatened land.” The report also indicated that 36 out of 50 cities in the United States classified as Among the cities most vulnerable to coastal flooding is located in Florida.
The danger threatens a number of coastal Arab cities
Although Arab countries do not contribute to global harmful gas emissions by more than 5%, the effects of climate change will be severe on them, given the location of many Arab countries near sea coasts.
Studies estimate that a rise in the water level of one meter will affect about 41,500 square kilometers of Arab coastal lands, which will harm 3.2% of the population, as water will submerge between 12% and 15% of the Nile Delta, and Bahrain will lose about 20% of its land. Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Mauritania, Qatar, Kuwait, and the Emirates will also be affected.
A World Bank report issued in 2012 warned of the drowning of some coastal Arab cities due to rising sea levels, such as Alexandria, Aden, and Jeddah.
A similar report published by the National Geographic Foundation indicated a rise in water levels in the Mediterranean Sea, which will lead to the drowning of the coastal areas of most Arab countries, starting from Morocco in the west, and may extend to the Gulf in the east if temperatures continue to rise.
Mauritania is classified among the ten countries most vulnerable to the risks of climate change sweeping the world. Therefore, the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott - which was founded in the late 1950s and is inhabited by about one million people - faces the threat of drowning steadily, because most of its neighborhoods fall below the level of the waters of the Atlantic Ocean that borders it. from the West.
A British woman fears her house will sink
Returning to the crisis of the people of the British village of Hemsby, Christy Morris - a resident of the village - says that her three-bedroom house, which she has owned for 24 years, is on the verge of drowning, after the road in front of it has already been washed away, and the distance of 20 meters that separates it from the edge of the cliff is shrinking. Daily.
Morris (49 years old), who works in a nursing home, tells of her daily tragedy to the British newspaper The Guardian, saying, “I have nightmares that the sea is outside my house and is crashing into its windows, while my 10-year-old daughter and I are trapped inside.”
She adds, "We may face an unusual spring tide that will swallow us all. It is terrifying and heartbreaking. Your house falling into the sea is a sad thing. Every two hours I wake up and think: Is everything okay? And the answer is: Unfortunately, no."
Houses are rapidly eroding in the Marams area in the village of Hemsby, southeast of the United Kingdom (Getty)
In November 2023, high tides and winds caused a village road to collapse, with Yarmouth District Council declaring that rapidly eroding homes in the Marrams area of Hemsby were “structurally unsound and unsafe and must be demolished”.
This demolition coincided with the tenth anniversary of the collapse of 5 houses in the village due to the sea tide in 2013, when storms undermined the foundations and swept away large amounts of sand.
In 2018, the “Beast from the East” storm swallowed about 23 meters of the Hemsby coast in just 8 days, pulling 7 homes into the sea, with the owners of 5 other homes evacuating due to the danger of living in them.
In March 2023, Yarmouth District Council spent £735,000 to pave 2,000 tonnes of granite along an 80m stretch of Hemsby coastline as a temporary measure to protect some of the village's homes.
In last November's storm, the village lost more than 27 meters in one day, and the following month, 5 more homes were demolished in Hemsby.
Coastal communities across the UK face the risk of accelerating the rate of erosion due to global warming, which is causing rising sea levels and increasingly erratic weather.
Scientists at the Tyndall Center for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia estimate that by 2050, a third of England's coastline, amounting to about 1,931 km, will be under pressure from rising sea levels, an area estimated to include 544,000 residential properties.
According to the Environment Agency, 53% of English and Welsh cliffs are vulnerable to instability and erosion, with soft clay cliffs on the east and south coasts of England particularly affected.
Source: Al Jazeera + British press