How sea level rise affects to tourism?

The global warming caused sea level rise and  it is definitely affect to tourism!

1. Tourists’ safety can be linked to unfavorable conditions( or weather). Those conditions can be linked to transportation delays, cancellations and accidents.
2. The loss of beach area needs higher costs to protect and maintain waterfronts.
3. High tide and an increasing sea level will lead to more frequent extreme events of coastal inundation and flooding.


"Sea level rise has a direct impact on decisions. Some resorts are become less attractive, other destinations may become more attractive. Some tourist destinations are extremely vulnerable to climate change. The Maldives are a good example. It is exists a very fine balance between the environment and human activity.  Any further increase in sea level, resulting from a continued warming trend, will threaten not only tourism but the very existence of the islands" (WWF)
Environmental changes are fundamental importance for tourism. Understanding these changes is a first step towards managing them and adapting to new circumstances!

Let's protect our Earth and never reach the end of the world!

References
WWF
http://www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/tourism_and_cc_full.pdf
Tourism Research
http://www.tourismresearch.govt.nz/Documents/FRST/Climate%20Change/Climate%20&%20Weather%20for%20Tourism%20-%20LitReview_Feb2010.pdf

Tuvalu, the first nation being washed away!

The country is in danger of disappearing beneath the waves. Tuvalu is destined to become earth’s first nations to be washed away due to the effect of global warming.

"Scientists have predicted an 88cm rise in sea levels in the next century - if that is proved correct, Tuvalu, like other low-lying atoll countries in the Pacific Ocean, could find itself underwater within 50 years." (BBC news)

"Tuvalu is low-lying with a mean elevation of 1.5 m above mean sea level. Any rise in sea level increases the frequency of flooding: about two-thirds of the sites considered would be inundated by a 1 m rise in sea level, and this would be exacerbated by increased wave action." (Climate Research)


Also I found a  short research affected to the people of Tuvalu, they are having difficulties growing their crops because of salination of the soil. Groundwater is increasingly becoming undrinkable due to sea-water intrusion. (MKM)

Reference
BBC news
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2219001.stm
Climate Research
http://www.teamfortheworld.org/docs/articles/sealevel.pdf
MKM
http://www.moyak.com/papers/tuvalu-climate-change.html

U.S., hundreds of cities will lose!

"Rising sea levels in hundreds of cities along U.S. coastlines will lose about 10 percent of their land area by 2100, finds new research led by University of Arizona scientists. The research is the first analysis of vulnerability to sea level rise that includes every U.S. coastal city in the lower 48 with a population of 50,000 or more. Cities along the Gulf of Mexico and southern Atlantic coasts such as Miami, New Orleans, Tampa and Virginia Beach will be particularly hard hit, the researchers discovered." (ENS)

Followed this discovery, at three meters (9.8 feet), on average more than 20 percent of land in those cities could be affected. Nine large cities, including Boston and New York, would have more than 10 percent of their current land area threatened. By six meters, about one-third of the land area in U.S. coastal cities could be affected.

Low-lying New York City is vulnerable to sea level rise.

The low-lying city of Tampa, Florida is predicted to experience sea level rise.

"According to the most recent sea level rise science, that's where we're heading," said lead researcher Jeremy Weiss, a senior research specialist in the University of Arizona's Department of Geosciences. "Impacts from sea-level rise could be erosion, temporary flooding and permanent inundation."(ENS)

Reference

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2011/2011-02-16-091.html

Japan, our thoughts are with you!

Today's biggest news in the world is the disaster in Japan!
"A magnitude 8.9 earthquake, the biggest quake to hit Japan since officials began keeping records in the late 1800s, struck off the country's northeast coast Friday at 2:46 p.m. local time. It was followed by at least 50 aftershocks, some of them more than magnitude 6.0, and triggered a tsunami that swallowed homes, swept away cars and boats and forced people to scramble to higher ground." (CBC news)

Hundreds more people were missing, tens of thousands of people were displaced. The quake prompted the U.S. National Weather Service to issue tsunami warnings for at least 50 countries and territories. Six million households, more than 10% of the total in Japan, were without electricity. The scale of destruction was not yet known, but there were grim signs that the death toll could soar. Officials are closely watching nuclear power plants after an explosion and secondary emergency at one of two nuclear plants damaged by the quake. "Prime Minister Naoto Kan said the "enormously powerful" earthquake had caused "tremendous damage over a wide area." (CBC news)

After this disaster, I believe that everyone will realize and understand how powerful the nature is. However, it is a warning for everyone in the world, it is time to save the Earth, and especially global warming. The nature will soon pounce on us again, it is fast, and no one can stop it.

Finally, we all pray for Japan!

References

CBC news

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/03/11/f-japan-earthquake-topix.html

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/11/japan.quake/index.html

Taiwan, unsafety of my homeland!

The video created me to make a new entry of this week.

Will I have to move-out from my country and immigrating to another country?

After I saw this video, I felt terrible and terrific of imagine my country will be covered by sea in the future.

Sea level rise by meters causes submergence of land areas in Taiwan

This news about Taiwan has been making the alarming to Taiwanese. Based on subsidence caused by poor land use practice. "Environmentalists consider the risk too high to ignore, and they point out that it is compounded by the overpumping of groundwater both for traditional agriculture and for fish farming.This has caused the groundwater level to fall and land to subside below sea level in some coastal areas, experts warn." (Watts up with that)
  
The fish-farming industry in western and northeastern Taiwan requires more ground water than is needed for irrigation. This kind of over-pumping of ground water causes the serious problems of land, examples, subsidence or sinking in the coastal areas. "According to a recent survey, an area of up to 1,097 square kilometers suffers from subsidence: this is 3% of the island’s total land area and 9% of its flat area. This problem obviously needs an immediate and effective solution." (Watts up with that)

 Land subsidence in Jiadong township, Pingtung, Taiwan

I don't want my country being lost in the future!

I love my country, because it is valuable that other countries can not replace it.  

We need to avoid the natural disasters and save our planet!  


Reference
Watts up with that 
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/05/10/taiwan-subsidence-or-sea-level-rise/

Bangladesh, one disaster after another!

Bangladesh, with the natural, historical and cultural attractions to the travellers. Sundarbans National Park with the world's largest mangrove belt. Bangladesh's Mainimati Ruins, a famous seat of Buddhist culture between the 7th and 12th centuries. The city of Chittagong, the lovely structures of Qadam Mubarak Mosque and Shahi Jama-e-Masjid as well as the charming Ethnological Museum. (Bangladesh Channel) But this country is facing the world's biggest problem.
 

Sundarbans National Park



  



Shahi Jama-e-Masjid





 

Chittagong city



Bangladesh is one of the world's poorest nations also is most vulnerable country to sea-level rise. "Asia's largest rivers, the Ganges and the Bramaputra, join in the world's most extensive delta and flow into the Bay of Bengal. There lies Bangladesh, a nation of 140 million people beset by poverty and the floods of the rivers, and now also affected by rising sea level. Already a million people a year are displaced by loss of land along rivers, and indications are this is increasing." (World View of Global Warming)

if no action is taken about global warming, intruding water will damage the Sundarbans mangrove forest and a world's heritage site.

 

References
Bangladesh Channel

http://www.bangladesh.com/attractions/

World View of Global Warming
http://emagzine.org/information-and-inspiration/articles/save-earth/the-photographic-documentation-on-climate-change/ 

Maldives, paradise soon to be lost!

 

 Sun-kissed paradise islands with white sands, this tourist haven is cursed with rising evidence of an environmental catastrophe. "Since 80% of its 1,200 islands are no more than 1m above sea level, within 100 years the Maldives could become uninhabitable.The country's 360,000 citizens would be forced to evacuate."(BBC News)

All of the islands of the Maldives are extremely sensitive to rising ocean levels. In fact, the country's highest point is only two meters above sea level. Global warming is causing glaciers and polar ice caps to melt, leading to a rise in ocean levels. If ocean levels rose enough, the entire country could disappear under water.

Rising sea levels caution the country's tourism-dependent economy. With global warming and rising sea levels warning not only the economy, it effects the entire country’s existence.

Reference
BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3930765.stm