Mombasa Island stands to lose billions if rising sea level is not checked

Paris, France: Mombasa Island risks losing Sh136 billion if the destructive rising sea levels projected to happen in over 50 years due to climate change occurs.

Lamu County is also at risk of losing a lot in terms of property and infrastructure.

The coastal islands of Mombasa and Lamu's urban infrastructure development, planning and design will most likely be impacted by the rise in sea level.

The new findings indicate that the Government should rethink the coastal design and planning. The rise in sea level which is expected to take place in the next 60 years has been a point of concern for scientists globally.

In a paper presented in Paris, France by South Africa's Wits University, architecture and planning department, the beautiful coastal cities are on the brink of destruction due to rising sea levels caused by ocean acidification caused by climate change.

The paper titled "Rethinking Coastal Design and Planning: Integrated SLR Vulnerability Assessments, Case of Mombasa and Lamu Islands” indicates that the two counties are relatively lower in elevation and hence the increased vulnerability.

"Compared to other Low Elevation Coastal Zones (LECZs) defined as contiguous areas along the coast that is less than 10 meters above sea level,” Violet Ochanda said.

She said the least developed countries have 14 per cent of their populations living in the LECZs compared to 10 per cent for the developed countries with the disparities widening in coastal urban areas.

"Literature suggests that coastal cities in the developing world are ill prepared for the impacts arising from sea level changes and related storm surges," Ochanda said.

She noted the southern and eastern African coastline (comprising the coasts of south africa, Mozambique, Tanzania and Kenya), will regularly be affected by changes in cyclonic and other significant weather events that pose risks related to the development and infrastructure in these countries.

The US' Recent Southern Ocean studies have suggested a slowdown of ocean carbon sequestration, an acidification of the water-masses, an overall warming and freshening in the vicinity of Antarctica, and drastic changes in sea ice and ice-shelf distributions.

The sea level rise observed that warming rate is faster than the global average, and occurs in the deepest layers of the ocean. The warming leads to ice-shelves melting, which accelerates the discharge of the ice sheet via the ice streams, and has a direct and major impact on the global sea level rise.

Melting ice

French Centre for Scientific Research's Senior Research Scientist Jean-Pierre Gatuso said it is estimated that the water levels are going to rise to up to 0.9 metres if nothing is done about global warming.

"Melting of the glaciers is underestimated. The sea is rising, but an estimation of three meters rise is way too much," he said.

According to Columbia University Economics Prof Joseph Stiglitz, it is true that a lot of thermal expansion is taking place.

"It is true the water levels are rising due to melting of ice," he said.