Coastal Erosion in Russia

 Coastal Erosion is when waves slowly weaken land near the coast and cause it to erode over time. According to "climatechangepost.com" (last updated April 2024) "In the Russian Federation, 25,000 km of the 61,000 km total length of the marine coast suffers from severe erosion." This is significant as coastal erosion can have many negative impacts on the economy. For example, coastal erosion can make it difficult for ships to navigate shipping ports, damage property, and impact fishing and agriculture.

To put this in perspective, according to an article titled "Some Estimates of Coastal Erosion in Russia" (published in 2002) Russia loses 5000 ha of important coastal areas annually, or (50 MILLION meters squared).

This is something that the ever growing issue of the thawing of permafrost impacts. According to "https://thebarentsobserver.com" (published in 2021) "The Russian State Commission for the Development of the Arctic has pointed to a new study which estimates that approximately 7,000 hectares of land are washed out to the sea annually, as the ice melt or are washed out into the sea." This is a huge increase from the estimated 5000 ha in 2002, showing how climate change is also having a significant impact on the coastal erosion seen in Russia.

From "climatechangepost.com" (again) "There is very little work on the impact of climate change on Russia’s coastal regions. One study estimates that the population exposure to sea level rise (SLR) could increase from 189,000 in present to 226,000 under unmitigated A1B emissions scenario in 2070 (4)." This shows that while there hasn't been much research on these coastal hazards, the impact on the Russian population is ever increasing. It also is important to note that more work needs to be done on researching the potential impacts of the coastal erosion in Russia.

For addressing this problem, despite coastal erosion being a natural process it has been speed up due to the permafrost issue. Hopefully as the issue of permafrost removal is addressed, it will help reduce the impact coastal erosion has.


Ogorodov: Annually Russia losses an area equal to the size of Liechtenstein

Comments

  1. XavierApril 28, 2024 at 11:33 PM

    This is really interesting, I never would have thought that permafrost was part of a coastal geosystem like that.

    ReplyDelete

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