Climate Change Impacts on Rural Poverty in Low-Elevation Coastal Zones

Barbier, Edward B.

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: FLOODING;    INFANT MORTALITY RATES;    FISH;    WETLAND RESTORATION;    INFANT MORTALITY;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-7475
RP-ID  :  WPS7475

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

This paper identifies the low-elevationcoastal zone populations and developing regions mostvulnerable to sea-level rise and other coastal hazards, suchas storm surges, coastal erosion, and salt-water intrusion.The focus is on the rural poor in the low-elevation coastalzone, as their economic livelihoods are especiallyendangered directly by coastal hazards and indirectlythrough the impacts of climate change on key coastal andnear-shore ecosystems. Using geo-spatially referencedmalnutrition and infant mortality data for 2000 as a proxyfor poverty, this study finds that just 15 developingcountries contain over 90 percent of the world’slow-elevation coastal zone rural poor. Low-income countriesas a group have the highest incidence of poverty, whichdeclines somewhat for lower-middle-income countries, andthen is much lower for upper-middle-income economies. SouthAsia, East Asia and the Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africaaccount for most of the world’s low-elevation coastal zonerural poor, and have a high incidence of poverty among theirrural low-elevation coastal zone populations. Althoughfostering growth, especially in coastal areas, may reducerural poverty in the low-elevation coastal zone, additionalpolicy actions will be required to protect vulnerablecommunities from disasters, to conserve and restore keycoastal and near-shore ecosystems, and to promote keyinfrastructure investments and coastal community response capability.