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 ارتفاع عدد السكان الذين يعيشون في مناطق الفيضانات infographic
Graphic shows countries at heightened flood risk by 2030.
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ارتفاع عدد السكان الذين يعيشون في مناطق الفيضانات

By Duncan Mil

August 5, 2021 - صور الأقمار الصناعية لـ 913 فيضان كبير منذ العام 2000 تظهر ارتفاع النسبة المئوية لسكان العالم المعرضين لخطر الفيضانات بنسبة الربع تقريباً - إلى ما بين 255 و290 مليون شخص.

New research published in the journal Nature, ahead of the COP26 UN Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, found that between 2000 to 2015, the number of people living in flood-prone areas increased by an estimated 58 million to 86 million.

A summer of extreme flooding devastated Germany and Nigeria and killed more than 300 people in China, triggering arguments about levels of preparation.

“It’s not surprising that we’re seeing really large floods that are potentially unprecedented affecting countries like China,” Beth Tellman, lead author of the study, told CNN. “This is exactly what the climate models have predicted.”

Scientists at Cloud to Street -- an analytics company that developed the Global Flood Database -- analyzed flood exposure using satellite observations between 2000 and 2018.

Floods inundated some 2.2 million square kilometres (861,000 square miles) of land in 32 countries. Nearly 90% of the floods analyzed occurred in South and Southeast Asia, particularly in China, India and Bangladesh, where migration has increased significantly since 2000.

Tellman et al. say the critical drivers of flooding are heavy rainfall, tropical storms or surges and snow and ice melt.

Looking to the future, the authors estimate that by 2030, there will be an extra 25 countries experiencing increasing floods.

Sources
PUBLISHED: 05/08/2021; STORY: Graphic News; PICTURES: Getty Images
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