More than two billion people could be at risk of flood devastation by 2050, according to research on Monday.
One billion people are already at risk from the kind of floods that might occur every 100 years. But with global warming, that number could double in two generations, according to United Nations University researchers who on Monday open an institute devoted to the environment and human security in Bonn, Germany. The university, an international network of scholars, has its headquarters in Tokyo.
Floods already affect more than 520-million people worldwide every year. Torrential rains and rising rivers damage crops, sweep away roads and bridges, flood homes and claim around 25 000 lives. Far more live in the path of once-a-century type floods.
But experts calculate the numbers at risk will more than double because of more frequent extreme weather events linked to global warming, because sea levels will continue to rise as glaciers melt, and because the clearing of forests means rainfall runs off faster.
The scientists also predict that because flood plains tend to have the richest agricultural soils, more people will move into the danger zone by 2050, as the planet’s population climbs to an estimated 10-billion.
Floods in Asia — the worst-affected continent — between 1987 and 1997 claimed 228 000 lives and caused economic losses of an estimated $136-billion. But in Europe in 2002, once-a-century floods killed 100 people, affected around 450 000 and did $20-billion damage. – Guardian Unlimited Â