Rising sea levels threaten China
Rising sea levels threaten China
BEIJING (UPI): An alarming rise in sea levels is threatening central China's Yangtze River Delta, one of the country's fastest growing and prosperous regions, the official media reported recently.
Sea levels along the coasts of Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, where the delta is located, are expected to rise 40 centimeters (16 inches) by the year 2030 and 70 centimeters (28 inches) by 2050, two times the global average, the Xinhua news agency said, quoting experts at the Pacific Science Congress in Beijing.
The levels compared with average annual rises worldwide of 1 to 2 millimeters (.04 to .08 inches) over the past century and China's national average over the period of 1.4 millimeters (.056 inches) per year.
The latest warning follows a report last month that sea levels rising some 2.19 millimeters (.087) every year are endangering the economically booming Pearl River Delta in southern China and the cities of Guangzhou and Zhuhai.
Zhu Jiwen, with the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, blamed the phenomenon on global warming and geological shifts, which he said would push world sea levels up by 50 centimeters over the next 15 years, the report said.
At that time, China's sea levels could rise more than four times the world rate.
"The densely populated and well-developed Yangtze Delataic area will be one of the regions most vulnerable to a sea level rise in the 21st century," Zhu said.
His report stressed the plight of Shanghai, located where the Yangtze River meets the sea, which is sinking rapidly under the weight of construction activity and the depletion of its ground water table.
Since 1991, the ground surface of China's largest city has subsided at a rate of 8 to 10 millimeters (.32 to .40 inches) a year, almost double the annual rate of 5.2 millimeters (.208 inches) between 1986 and 1990.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the annual rate soared to 100 millimeters (4 inches).
According to Zhang Guijia of Tongji University in Shanghai, rising sea levels in the metropolis have increased threats from storms and left ineffective flood control measures designed to counter sea water flooding and promote the drainage of rain water and sewage.
He said Shanghai's dikes were designed to withstand the highest tides recorded during a 1,000-year historical period. But a 50 to 70-centimeter (20 to 28-inch) rise in sea levels by the year 2050 would lower the protective rating of the structures to the 100-year period.
Shanghai and Guangzhou are two of five Chinese cities imperiled by the effects of global warming, according to a report released in March by China's National Environmental Protection Agency, the United Nations Development Program and the World Bank.
The report warned that by 2050, rising sea levels could threaten 92,000 square kilometers (36,800 square miles) of land -- an area the size of Portugal -- and displace 76 million people -- more than the population of the Philippines.
While China is a major victim of climactic changes resulting from the greenhouse effect, it is also one of the world's biggest contributors to the problem, due to its dependence on coal for 76 percent of its energy needs.