Ars Technica: Rising seas will cut off many properties before they're flooded

[DBoon]

... But having a property above water won't be much good if flooding nearby means you can't get to a hospital or grocery store when you need to or lose access to electricity or other services. It's entirely possible for rising seas to leave a property high, dry, but uninhabitable as rising seas cut connections to essential services. A group of researchers has analyzed the risk of isolation driven by sea level rise, and shows it's a major contributor to the future risks the US faces.

Conceptually, isolation is pretty easy to understand. While some people on the coast may live on relatively high ground, access to their homes can involve a road that goes through low-lying areas. As such, sea level rise can mean people living there start to lose road access due to flooding at high tide long before any ocean shows up on the property. While things like trips for groceries can be planned around tidal flooding, access to things like schools and emergency services typically can't be planned around the tides.

Inundation of roads can also weaken their foundations, leading to failure or maintenance that can take them out of use. Finally, we often run critical infrastructure—water and sewer lines, electricity, networking—along roadways. So there are various ways that losing road access, even from periodic flooding, can make living somewhere untenable.
...
The results make it clear that isolation will be a significant problem for the US. Even under the lowest sea level rise scenario (0.5 meters by 2100), over half a million people will be at risk of isolation in 2080—and that's in addition to the people whose property will be regularly inundated. Under the intermediate scenario, that number rises to nearly a million people

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https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/rising-seas-will-cut-off-many-properties-before-theyre-flooded/

[Delphinus]

1. Fascinating

article! I'm glad you posted this. Glad they also gave a link for us to try it ourselves.