— Egypt’s coastal city of Alexandria, which has survived invasions, fires and earthquakes since it was founded by Alexander the Great more than 2,000 years ago, now faces a new menace in the form of climate change.
Alexandria, the country’s second city, is surrounded on three sides by the Mediterranean Sea and backs up to a lake, making it uniquely susceptible to the rise in sea levels caused by global warming and the melting of the polar ice caps. Egypt’s Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation says the sea level rose by an average of 1.8 millimeters annually until 1993.
A 2018 study predicted that up to 734 square kilometers of the Nile Delta could be inundated by 2050 and 2,660 square kilometers by the end of the century, affecting 5.7 million people. “It is hard to imagine that el-Max will be here in a few decades,” said Khalil. “All these houses might vanish. The area you see now will be an underwater museum.”
Ashour Abdel-Karim, head of the Egyptian General Authority for Shores Protection, said the citadel is especially vulnerable. He said the increasingly powerful waves and currents had pushed into the foundations, forcing authorities to install a long line of concrete sea barriers visible from the built-up downtown waterfront, known as the Corniche.