- Climate change: The impact of sea level rise on Egypt    1042 kb by    Elsharkawy, Heba & Rashed, Haitham & Rached, Ihab | laxhe2@nottingham.ac.uk    Short Outline Global warming promotes sea level rise significantly, affecting many countries, including Egypt, whose population will be most severely impacted by it. The paper will discuss the SLR effects on Egypt; economically, socially and environmentally. Abstract Global warming and climatic changes are turning to be serious dangers to the life of mankind on Earth. This does not only apply to the ecological contexts, but extends to involve severe socio-economic consequences. As noted by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); climate change will have many negative effects, including greater frequency of heat waves, floods and droughts, loss of biodiversity and rising sea levels. Even if greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are stabilized in the near future, thermal expansion and deglaciation will continue to raise the sea level for many decades. Continued growth of GHG emissions and associated global warming can well promote SLR significantly this century. A large number of coastal countries will face drastic consequences due to the SLR, particularly those of the developing world which are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, Egypt will be one of them. Egypt’s population will be most severely impacted by SLR, most of this impact will take place in the Nile Delta. Egypt’s gross domestic product (GDP) will also be significantly skewed by the effect of SLR on its agricultural level. In fact, most of the impact of SLR on the agricultural sector in the Middle East and North Africa region will take place in Egypt, which will experience a severe impact. Moreover, the harsh effects of climate change will have long-lasting economic effects in addition to the physical ones. It is estimated that without acting, the overall global costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing 5%-20% of global GDP each year. This loss will also affect the developing countries robustly, such as Egypt. By 2050, the combined effects of climate change, land-use change, and water resources management on future water availability in Egypt range from a large water surplus to a large water deficit. The real dilemma is that the international community has not yet seriously considered the implications of SLR for population location and infrastructure planning in developing countries. The paper will discuss a number of implications which may arise in Egypt with the diverse effects of climate change; economically, socially and environmentally. It will display some of the environmental features affected; especially the consequences of the sea level rise on the River Nile- the second longest river in the world. Keywords sea level rise, Nile Delta, GDP loss, water deficit Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2009: Low Carbon Cities   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper