Coastal Surges (Chapter 12)

The risk of coastal flooding is increasing as a result of population growth, an increase in infrastructure located in coastal zones, sea level rise, and in some cases subsidence, caused by pumping of groundwater in deltas, which can lead to ground levels falling by 1–4 cm/year. Average global coastal flood losses in the 136 largest coastal cities in the world have been estimated to be approximatively US$6 billion. The deadliest storm surge on record was the Bhola cyclone in 1970. It resulted in around 225,000 deaths in Bangladesh alone and approximately 500,000 fatalities in the countries surrounding the Bay of Bengal. In Europe, in 1953 a coastal surge killed 300 people in the east of England and several thousand in the Netherlands and Belgium. In the past decade, despite improvements in early warning systems, there have been a number of significant storm surge events both in Europe and worldwide that have had deadly consequences. Shows an area of New Orleans in the United States flooded as a result of the storm surge caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005