ABSTRACT
Of all the potential impacts of climate change, the impacts of sea-level rise on coastal regions have been among the easiest to visualise. Consequently, images of sea-level rise and the inundation of vulnerable regions have figured prominently in discussions of climate change in the popular press, as well as in assessments of the economic, social and environmental impacts of climate change. This chapter addresses perhaps the most apparent and widely discussed effect of sea-level rise: its impacts on developed coastal regions. Other important impacts of sea-level rise, not addressed in this chapter, include the intrusion of salt water into rivers and groundwater and losses of or changes in estuaries and coastal wetlands.
