World Sea-Level Rise Dataset

Sea-level rise (SLR) due to climate change is a serious global threat: The scientific evidence is now overwhelming. Continued growth of greenhouse gas emissions and associated global warming could well promote SLR of 1m in this century, and unexpectedly rapid breakup of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets might produce a 3-5m SLR. In this research, we have assessed the consequences of continued SLR for 84 coastal developing countries. Geographic Information System (GIS) software has been used to overlay the best available, spatially-disaggregated global data on critical impact elements (land, population, agriculture, urban extent, wetlands, and GDP), with the inundation zones projected for 1-5m SLR. This research was carried out by the World Bank in 2006, and was funded by the Canadian Trust Fund (TF030569) sponsored by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).