Skip to main content

River deltas are threatened by more than climate change – leaving hundreds of millions of people at risk

 

Perilously situated between rising sea levels and pressures from upstream lie coastal river deltas and their roughly half a billion inhabitants. These regions have played an important role in societal development since the last ice age, offering flat, fertile lands with abundant freshwater which are ideal for agriculture.

In recent times, coastal river deltas have become hubs of the global shipping trade, giving rise to fast-growing megacities such as Dhaka, Cairo and Shanghai. But these areas are now under threat. And not all of the blame can be placed on climate change.

Read article 1 here!

Read article 2 here!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

  Carbon   catch-22 : the pollution in our soil Bad behaviour doesn’t usually have good consequences but our fossil fuel and fertiliser habits may have had some “good” environmental side-effects.  Our new research  suggests that the last 200 years of pollution have increased the carbon stored in soils across natural ecosystems in Britain. And this locking in of carbon in soils provides an offset for some of our carbon emissions. But the catch-22 is if we kick our polluting habits, this carbon is at risk of returning to our atmosphere, contributing to climate change. Read the rest of the article  here!

NEA – Sampling and Data presentation

No doubt you have by now spent considerable time considering the different methods you will use to collect data. This is valuable and important as methods are the salient factor in determining the accuracy of the data and subsequent conclusion therefore weaknesses in the methods reduce the certainty of the conclusions. The blog post  here  looks at some techniques you may wish to use to present your data amongst other important pieces of information.  There are also further pieces of information to be found below:  Barcelona Field Studies Centre Field studies council General data presentation

Climate crisis could reverse progress in achieving gender equality

People who directly depend on the natural world for their livelihoods, like farmers and fishers, will be among the greatest victims of the climate crisis. In vulnerable hotspots, such as the arid lands of Kenya and Ethiopia, farming communities are already struggling with droughts and water scarcity that kill their cattle and threaten their very survival. The glacial-fed river basins of the Himalayan mountains, or the deltas of Bangladesh, India and Ghana, are increasingly prone to floods, landslides and powerful cyclones. As a result, men are often migrating further to keep their families going, looking for casual work in neighbouring towns or villages for a few days or weeks at a time, or to cities further away. Many try to return home when they can, with whatever they have earned. But during their absence, the entire burden of maintaining the family is on women. Read the full article  here!