Environment

Dublin, Cork, Belfast ‘face future flooding threat’

Researchers use Nasa data to map urban areas threatened by climate change

A Feburary 2002 file photograph of flooding in the Ringsend area of Dublin. Photograph: The Irish Times

Tue Jun 19 2018 - 14:08

Dublin, Cork and Belfast are among the cities that could suffer the impact of climate change, a study has claimed.

Researchers using data from Nasa’s Global Rural Urban Mapping Project defined the urban extent of Irish and UKcities and assessed which could be vulnerable to rising sea levels and flooding by 2050.

Among those cities listed in this category are Belfast, London, Edinburgh and Glasgow.

In addition, researchers found Belfast, Dublin and Cork could be be vulnerable to blackouts from power plants affected by coastal flooding by 2050.

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The dataset used is different to administrative city boundaries and results in certain smaller cities being included in the results due to their proximity to larger urban areas that are highly vulnerable to a specific climate risk.

London’s vulnerability to flooding and sea level rise also pulls in certain neighbouring towns and cities included in the London area dataset, such as Luton and Reading, which may themselves be some considerable distance from the coast, the researchers said.

Cities that could be vulnerable to rising sea levels and flooding by 2050:

- Belfast

- Brighton

- Middlesbrough

- Dundee

- Swansea

- Southend-on-Sea

- Sunderland

- Aberdeen

- Newcastle

- Portsmouth

- Plymouth

- Kingston upon Hull

- Cardiff

- Southampton

- Bristol

- Edinburgh

- Glasgow

- London

- Reading*

- Luton*

Cities that could be vulnerable to blackouts from power plants affected by coastal flooding by 2050.

- Dublin

- Cork

- Sunderland

- Southend-on-Sea

- Reading

- Middlesbrough

- Kingston upon Hull

- Norwich

- Luton

- Newcastle

- London

– PA

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