Rising Sea Levels Will Cause Greatest Human Migration, And It's A Worrying Sign For India
The data revealed that it's not just the coastal areas that will be affected by this, it will equally impact the regions that are far away from the seas or oceans.
It isn't news that global warming is causing the ice in the polar regions to melt, resulting in the rise of sea levels across the globe that is endangering the coastal regions of the world but we don't really understand the severity of the situation yet.
Reuters
However, a new study (published in PLOS ONE) led by the University of Southern California Computer Science Assistant Professor Bistra Dilkina brings to light the aftermath.
The researchers took existing projections of rising sea levels and combined this with population projections to predict the impact of migration.
Reuters
They also took data on migration patterns after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, to train the machine learning models to predict where people would relocate.
The data revealed that it's not just the coastal areas that will be affected by this, it will equally impact the regions that are far away from the seas or oceans.
As per the study, In the US alone, 13 million people could have to migrate due to rising sea levels by the year 2100.
This will put immense stress on other cities in the nation, resulting in more competition for jobs, increased housing prices, and more pressure on infrastructure networks.
Reuters
Now in case you were wondering this data is only for states in the US, and that India is safe from this, you¡¯re sadly mistaken. Rising sea levels will also impact coastal regions in India like Mumbai, Kochi, Kozhikode, Mangalore, to name a few.
With India already dealing with a ton of population, a migration like this could cause irreversible damage to the already delicate state of the nation, if situations don¡¯t improve.
Dilkina said in the published paper, ¡°We hope this research will empower urban planners and local decision-makers to prepare to accept populations displaced by sea-level rise. Our findings indicate that everybody should care about sea-level rise, whether they live on the coast or not. This is a global impact issue.¡±
