Nightmarish prospects for coastal risks in the Mediterranean Sea in the new report published on Monday 18 November by scientists from the Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change. Our sea is rising at approximately 2.8 mm per year — twice the 20th-century average. By the end of the century it could rise by one metre. Coastal erosion, in some areas, could reach 23 metres by 2050.
The Mediterranean coast is among the regions of the world with the highest probability of flooding. Both the north-eastern beaches and the small beaches of southern Italy — which could disappear entirely — are at high risk of erosion.
One chapter of the report addresses marine waste: the Mediterranean Sea is one of the areas most polluted by plastic in the entire world. Floating plastic accumulates along its coasts due to human activities and marine circulation. Plastic represents up to 82% of the observed waste, 95–100% of total floating marine litter, and over 50% of seabed marine waste in the Mediterranean.
Read the news here
By correspondent Sara Gandolfi
Photo credits: Economia Circolare
