Destin, Florida is at the top of the coastal erosion list. Photo: Unsplash
Coastal erosion is fast becoming a real issue. It’s a foolish man who builds his house upon the sand, as the Bible says, but in places like North Carolina, those houses weren’t built by fools — they were simply built by people who couldn’t see into the future. Twelve houses have collapsed into the ocean in the Outer Banks in the last five years, and it’s only going to get worse. A recent study done by a Netherlands-based climate solutions company called the Reinders Corporation looked at United States beach towns in order to identify and rank which ones are losing their shorelines the fastest.
Many of the beaches on the list are in densely populated areas and are already at higher risk of flooding and erosion. Brett Barley recently showed the unbelievable scale of North Carolina’s Coastal Erosion in two videos shot 10 years apart, and the footage is jarring, to say the least.
“The data we’re seeing about these coastal communities is deeply concerning,” said Gerrit Jan Reinders, CEO of Reinders Corporation, in an email. “When we look at places like Clearwater Beach facing over 200 meters of shore recession, it’s going to affect all nearby residences. North Carolina has already shown us what’s coming, with 12 beachfront houses collapsing into the ocean in just five years. These communities are faced with the same vulnerabilities. We need to stop thinking about coastal erosion as tomorrow’s problem and start treating it as today’s crisis.”
According to the study, here are the top five beaches most vulnerable to coastal erosion. The researchers chose the year 2100 — just 76 years from now — as the end point of their projection. By analyzing shoreline change projections from Vousdoukas et al.’s 2020 coastal erosion study, they matched the top beaches around the world using Beach Atlas, a London-based beach guide, with the projections using Python analysis. They then drilled down and ranked only the beaches that are expected to experience coastal erosion.
1: Clearwater Beach, Florida
Projected to lose 202.77 meters of shoreline
116,528 residents
2: Coronado Beach, California
Projected to lose 129.35m of shoreline
18,628 residents
3: Malibu, California
Projected to lose 112.11m of shoreline
10,045 residents
4: Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Projected to lose 110.73m of shoreline
3,039 residents
5: Destin Beach, Florida
Projected to lose 99.56m of shoreline
14,354 residents
It’s not something that’s going to go away if we ignore it, either. In fact, it’s likely not going to go away even if we do something about it.
“The rate of global sea level rise is accelerating,” researchers at NOAA wrote. “It has more than doubled from 0.06 inches (1.4 millimeters) per year throughout most of the 20th century to 0.14 inches (3.6 millimeters) per year from 2006–2015.”
Throughout the world, there are many places that are facing a slow-moving disaster in the coming decades. The U.S. is not immune.
“In many locations along the U.S. coastline, the rate of local sea level rise is greater than the global average due to land processes like erosion, oil and groundwater pumping, and subsidence,” NOAA wrote. “High-tide flooding is now 300 percent, to more than 900 percent more frequent than it was 50 years ago.”
