A staggering new figure highlights the need for immediate conservation and rehabilitation efforts of coastal regions on a global scale: only 15.5% of these regions remain intact. The recent University of Queensland study mapped the degradation of coastal regions from human-caused "industrialized" pressures, such as roadways, nutrient pollution from agriculture activities, and even intense fishing, as reported by CBS.

According to the study's co-author Brooke Williams, "Coastal regions contain high levels of biodiversity and are relied upon by millions of people for ecosystem services such as food and storm protection."

Why This Matters

Researchers fear the feedback loop in which global warming melts ice caps faster, thus accelerating global warming by releasing additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Ice melt has already accelerated at an alarming rate. For example, the Thwaites glacier (AKA "The Doomsday Glacier") is predicted to collapse within 3 to 5 years, which would raise global sea levels by 25%. And last month, researchers found that over the last three years, the largest iceberg on Earth has emptied enough water into the ocean to fill over 60 million Olympic-sized pools.

In the US, over half of the coastal regions are under high amounts of human and industrialized pressure, especially Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. Meanwhile, these same regions are also facing other human-caused climate change impacts, such as rising sea levels and temperatures that increase vulnerability to flooding and disastrous storms. In May 2021, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill allocating $640 million to mitigate the impacts of rising sea levels on the state.

What's Next

The study results certainly provide clear targets of where to focus both conservation and rehabilitation efforts, and its authors hope the data will encourage governments’ ambitions. One of its collaborators, Dr. Amelia Wenger states, "We're urging governments and custodians of these environments to proactively conserve the valuable remaining intact coastal regions that they are responsible for, while restoring those that are degraded."