Half of the world's beaches, many of which are in densely populated areas, may disappear by the end of this century in the current climate change and sea-level rise trend, according to a climate science report published by nature climate change.

Ocean and land are two basic units of the earth's surface. Coastline is the boundary line between ocean and land. More precisely, it is the line connecting the sea water to the limit of land. The beach, which occupies more than one third of the world's coastline, has a high social and economic value. Beaches also provide natural coastal protection, making the coast less vulnerable to ocean storms and hurricanes. However, erosion, sea-level rise and changes in weather patterns have threatened the coastline, its public facilities and population.

Michaelis vostokas, a scientist at the European Commission's joint research center, and others analyzed a satellite image database that showed coastline changes from 1984 to 2015. According to the historical trend, the research team predicted the future coastline dynamics under two different climate change scenarios. They identified changes in the environmental coastline driven by physical (Geological) or human factors, as well as coastline retreat due to sea-level rise. At the same time, the team looked at how storm erosion might change and affect coastlines in the context of climate change.

The above analysis shows that about 50% of the world's beaches are at risk of serious erosion. In two climate change scenarios, the risk of erosion is particularly high in some countries, such as Gambia and Guinea peso, where more than 60% of the coastline beaches may be lost. As for the total length of sand beaches that may be lost, Australia will suffer the most, with nearly 12000 km of sand beaches expected to be at risk. Canada, Chile, Mexico, China and the United States will also be significantly affected.

The team said that more studies would further optimize these estimates, and human intervention could also affect the estimates.

In August last year, a report by the World Wide Fund for nature (WWF) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) showed that the speed of sand and gravel extraction in the world has exceeded the speed of natural recovery.

Source: Science and Technology Daily