Is it hoped discovery of medieval trading town Ravenser Odd can teach people about perils of climate crisis
Hopes are high that a fabled medieval town known as “Yorkshire’s Atlantis” is about to be located and will begin giving up secrets held for more than 650 years.
Ravenser Odd was a prosperous port town built on sandbanks at the mouth of the Humber estuary before it was abandoned and later destroyed and submerged by a calamitous storm in 1362.
Continue reading...Villagers rely more on the forest’s resources, threatening its ecosystem – and leaving them more vulnerable to cyclones
As he steps out of the mosque on the banks of the Kholpetua River, Mohammed Sabud Ali looks out at a view he has seen several times a day for most of his life. But never before has the sprawling Sundarbans mangrove forest felt so important to him.
The vast Sundarbans has always protected Bangladeshi coastal communities from the violent cyclones that regularly crash in from the Bay of Bengal, and they have always harvested its resources. But now, as the climate crisis encroaches, people are becoming even more dependent on the forest.
Continue reading...Along the eastern shore, seaside attractions are being demolished and millions of homes are at risk as rising sea levels speed erosion
From a distance, the beach at Winterton-on-sea in Norfolk looks like the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan, with hundreds of grey bodies lying motionless across the sand. On closer inspection, it becomes clear they are not fallen soldiers but a huge colony of seals taken to the land for pupping season.
It’s an amazing annual sight that draws tourists and nature-lovers from across the country, but another process is taking place that is pushing people back – the growing threat of coastal erosion. Just along from where the armies of grey seals lay with their white pups, there used to stand the Dunes Cafe, a much-loved beach facility with a large and loyal clientele.
Continue reading...Coastal communities in Mexico, Bangladesh and Somalia are struggling to adapt to the climate crisis. Many people have already lost livelihoods and homes to rising waters
Continue reading...As the sea claims more of the west African shoreline, those left homeless by floods are losing hope that the government will act
Waves have taken the landscape John Afedzie knew so well. “The waters came closer in the last few months, but now they have destroyed parts of schools and homes. The waves have taken the whole of the village. One needs to use a boat to commute now because of the rising sea levels,” he says.
Afedzie lives in Keta, one of Ghana’s coastal towns, where a month ago high tide brought seawater flooding into 1,027 houses, according to the government, leaving him among about 3,000 people made homeless overnight.
Continue reading...Billions of these tiny plastic pellets are floating in the ocean, causing as much damage as oil spills, yet they are still not classified as hazardous
When the X-Press Pearl container ship caught fire and sank in the Indian Ocean in May, Sri Lanka was terrified that the vessel’s 350 tonnes of heavy fuel oil would spill into the ocean, causing an environmental disaster for the country’s pristine coral reefs and fishing industry.
Classified by the UN as Sri Lanka’s “worst maritime disaster”, the biggest impact was not caused by the heavy fuel oil. Nor was it the hazardous chemicals on board, which included nitric acid, caustic soda and methanol. The most “significant” harm, according to the UN, came from the spillage of 87 containers full of lentil-sized plastic pellets: nurdles.
Continue reading...In a developing country reliant on its tourist industry, the rapidly eroding ‘smiling coast’ shows the urgent need for action on climate change
When Saikou Demba was a young man starting out in the hospitality business, he opened a little hotel on the Gambian coast called the Leybato and ran a beach bar on the wide expanse of golden sand. The hotel is still there, a relaxed spot where guests can lie in hammocks beneath swaying palm trees and stroll along shell-studded pathways. But the beach bar is not. At high tide, Demba reckons it would be about five or six metres into the sea.
“The first year the tide came in high but it was OK,” he says. “The second year, the tide came in high but it was OK. The third year, I came down one day and it [the bar] wasn’t there: half of it went into the sea.”
Continue reading...A storm took the roof off Binta Bah’s house before torrential rain destroyed her family’s belongings, as poverty combines with the climate crisis to wreak havoc on Africa’s smallest mainland country
The windstorm arrived in Jalambang late in the evening, when Binta Bah and her family were enjoying the evening cool outside. “But when we first heard the wind, the kids started to run and go in the house,” she says.
First they went in one room but the roof – a sheet of corrugated iron fixed only by a timbere pole – flew off. They ran into another but the roof soon went there too.
Continue reading...As well as floods, sewage and crocodiles, those living in Banjul’s slums face the effects of a climate crisis they did little to cause
Yedel Bah would move home if she could, but she can’t. With no income of her own, four children to feed and a husband who just about manages, her family lives from day to day, and from flood to flood, on the banks of a litter-strewn, stagnant canal.
Every rainy season, the neighbourhood of Tobacco Road in the Gambian capital, Banjul, braces for downpours of such intensity that the canal overflows, spilling its murky, pungent depths into the slum-like homes that run alongside it.
Continue reading...These fragile ecosystems are where the impacts of the climate crisis are often felt first, say experts
The Ebro delta appears to be in robust health, to a casual observer. There is water gurgling in the canals and irrigation channels, and what appears to be a mighty river flowing into the sea. The dazzling green rice fields are dotted with ibis, egrets and redshanks.
However, all is not what it seems. The Ebro, the only one of Spain’s three great rivers that flows into the Mediterranean, is one of the most abused and exploited in Europe.
Continue reading...Crisp packets, cup lids and wet wipes among the more mundane objects commonly encountered
A full-size disco ball, a plastic Christmas tree and a double mattress were among the more unusual objects found by volunteers cleaning up the UK’s beaches this autumn.
The most common polluting items retrieved in the Marine Conservation Society’s annual clean of coastal areas were pieces of plastic or polystyrene, plastic takeaway cup lids and wet wipes.
Continue reading...Several houses on Ocean View Drive now dangerously close to cliff edge as huge waves wash away beaches
Beachfront homes along the New South Wales Central Coast have been left dangling over the ocean and in danger of collapse after powerful surf caused massive erosion.
A powerful low across Australia’s east coast earlier in the week created large swells and high waves battering some coastal areas.
Continue reading...Harbour seals struggle to match volume of passing ships when trying to attract a mate
Cruise ships are drowning out the roars of seals that are important for bagging a mate, researchers have found in the latest study to reveal the consequences of human activity on wildlife.
Ships are known to produce low-frequency sounds which can overlap with calls made by marine creatures. But now researchers studying harbour seals say such noise could be taking its toll.
Continue reading...UK on course to lose a quarter of its sandy coast because of human-driven erosion
Almost half of the world’s sandy beaches will have retreated significantly by the end of the century as a result of climate-driven coastal flooding and human interference, according to new research.
The sand erosion will endanger wildlife and could inflict a heavy toll on coastal settlements that will no longer have buffer zones to protect them from rising sea levels and storm surges. In addition, measures by governments to mitigate against the damage are predicted to become increasingly expensive and in some cases unsustainable.
Continue reading...Coastline that has been up for Unesco listing has been in poor condition for years
Italian prosecutors have seized control of the famous Scala dei Turchi limestone coastline, one of the Mediterranean’s main tourist attractions, citing poor handling of the cliff’s preservation.
For years, the site of the Scala dei Turchi – meaning Turkish steps or stairs of the Turks – a candidate for Unesco heritage, has been in a state of degradation. It is subject to constant erosion and theft by visitors who detach pieces of marl, the white sedimentary rock that gives the steps their distinctive appearance.
Continue reading...Residents on fastest-eroding coastline in northern Europe told of ‘imminent risk’
For those who long to live by the sea, the thought of gently breaking waves and waking by the beach sums up the irresistible charm of coastal life. But not, perhaps, in the Yorkshire village of Skipsea.
Residents in the tiny seaside parish were warned this week that a large number of homes are at “imminent risk” of tumbling into the North Sea within 12 months because of the rapid erosion of the East Yorkshire coast.
Continue reading...Activists say stinking sludge is linked to nitrates in fertilisers from intensive farming
André Ollivro stepped carefully down the grassy banks of an estuary in the bay of Saint-Brieuc, Brittany, not far from his beachfront cabin. The pungent smell of rotting eggs wafting from decomposing seaweed made him stop and put on his gas mask. It was a strange sight in what is usually a tourist hotspot.
“You can’t be too careful,” said the 74-year-old former gas technician, who is leading the fight against what has come to be known as France’s coastal “killer slime”.
Continue reading...Couple in hot water as Italian authorities get tough on issue blighting island for years
A pair of French tourists could face up to six years in jail after allegedly stealing 40kg (6st 3lbs) of sand from one of Sardinia’s pristine beaches.
Border police found the white sand, taken from Chia beach in the south of the Italian island, stashed into 14 large plastic bottles in the boot of the couple’s car. The pair were about to board a ferry for Toulon, in southern France, from Porto Torres.
Continue reading...CSIRO says dramatic climate events are compounding the effects of underlying global heating
Extreme climate events such as heatwaves, floods and drought damaged 45% of the marine ecosystems along Australia’s coast in a seven-year period, CSIRO research shows.
More than 8,000km of Australia’s coast was affected by extreme climate events from 2011 to 2017, and in some cases they caused irreversible changes to marine habitats.
Continue reading...Environment Agency calls for urgent action to protect country from river and coastal floods
Entire communities might need to be moved away from coasts and rivers as the UK takes urgent action to prepare for an average global temperature rise of 4C, the Environment Agency warned.
The agency said on Thursday that difficult decisions would have to be taken in the coming years to make sure the UK was resilient amid flooding that would not be held back by higher land defences.
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