Around the world, settlements in flood-prone areas have been expanding faster than the average of newly built cities, towns and villages, a paper released Wednesday in thehas found. Despite climate change increasing the risk of floods, more people have begun living in these areas, driving up the likeliness of human and economic disaster.
The world region most affected is East Asia and the Pacific, where between 1985 and 2015, the share of settlements at risk of severe flooding increased from 7.8% to 9.5%. Around the world, just 5.2% of all human settlements carry the risk of being inundated by more than 1.5 meters of water in the case of a 100-year flood, which is an event that has the likeliness of 1 in 100 of occurring in any given year. This number was up from 4.3% in 1985.
While living close to bodies of water is sometimes associated with luxury, it is most often a sign of rapid urbanization and land scarcity in low- and middle-income countries. The authors of the study identify a lack of urban planning and disaster awareness in less developed regions as reasons why flood-prone areas are being settled in these nations when land becomes scarce. The pressure on rapidly growing cities which attract people looking for economic opportunity is causing this effect.
Ukrainian Troops Recovered One Of Their Damaged Strv 122 Tanks—In Time For The Tank To Meet The PresidentiOS 17 0 3 Update Now Warning Issued To All iPhone Users Other high-income nations that live with an elevated flood risk are Japan, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Austria, Croatia, Slovenia and South Korea, among others. This makes Europe the region most riskily settled after those in Asia, albeit with better management in most places. In parts of the Balkans which are classified as middle-income, flood risk of settlements is among the highest in the world—namely in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Montenegro.