“Some of our communities, both in this country and around the world, cannot stay where they are,” the head of the U.K.’s Environment Agency said.
The U.K.'s Bevan, who was speaking on Tuesday at a conference in Telford, Shropshire, argued that"in some places the right answer — in economic, in strategic, in human terms — will have to be to move communities away from the danger rather than to try and protect them from the inevitable impacts of a rising sea level."
It is likely to have"major implications for hundreds of millions of coastal dwellers" in addition to increasing"vulnerability to tropical cyclones."Bevan was speaking on the same day that his agency released its Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy Roadmap. Work with the Town and Country Planning Association to put together training materials with the goal of boosting"skills and capabilities" related to development planning and flood risk.This image from 2018 shows properties on the edge of a cliff on the coast of Norfolk, England. Rising sea levels and coastal erosion pose a threat to many coastal communities around the world.
"I think that, with the right interventions over the coming years, we can achieve that for most of the coastal communities in this country as far ahead as any of us can reasonably foresee," he said.