Study finds 46 pc of world's low-income regions continue living closer to coast

New Delhi, Sep 22 (PTI) About 46 per cent of the world's low-income regions, especially in Africa and Asia may be forced to continue living in coastal areas or move closer to the coast, revealing a large gap in adapting to and addressing risks due to climate change, a study has suggested.

Looking at changes in night-time lights for 1992-2019, researchers from Sichuan University in China, Australia's Monash University and others, estimated that settlements retreated in 56 per cent of coastal subnational areas or administrative regions around the world, remained stable in 28 per cent and moved closer in 16 per cent.

Retreating from a coastal area was found to have a weak relation with experiencing a coastal climate hazard in the past.

However, moving away from the coast was accelerated in regions more vulnerable to climate hazards indicated by a lower protection of infrastructure and less adaptive capacity, according to the findings published in the journal Nature Climate Change.

Previous studies have estimated over 40 per cent of the world's population to live within 100 kilometres of coastlines.

They are therefore, vulnerable to tropical cyclones, flooding and sea-level rise, chances of all of which are projected to increase in a warmer future, compounded by rapid economic development, the researchers said.

An absence of efforts required to adapt to a changing climate will compromise international ambitions of achieving Sustainable Development Goals and climate adaptation outlined in the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, the team said.

Coastlines of Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Puducherry in India were among the regions looked at in the analysis.

"In 46 per cent of low-income regions, particularly in Africa and Asia, settlements were forced to either maintain their current status quo or move closer to coastlines, revealing the large adaptation gap in addressing future climate change risks," the authors wrote.

They added, "We analyse night-time light changes for 1992 to 2019 and show that settlements retreated from coastlines in 56 per cent of coastal subnational regions, remained stable in 28 per cent, and moved closer to coastlines in 16 per cent of these regions." Retreating from the coast was also seen to take place more widely in lower middle-income (65 per cent) and upper middle-income (59 per cent) groups and was less pronounced in low-income (nearly 54 per cent) and high-income (45.6 per cent) groups.

Socioeconomic improvement and lack of alternative resources in the low-income groups could result in a hesitation to retreat, the researchers said.

Continent-wise, Asia (17.4 per cent) and South America (17.7 per cent) led the movement of human settlements towards coastlines, followed by Europe (14.8 per cent), Oceania (13.8 per cent), Africa (12.4 per cent) and North America (8.8 per cent), the team said. PTI KRS NB