Overall, LECZs contain some 2 per cent of the world’s land and 10 per cent of its population, based on estimates for 2000. As illustrated in Table 9.1, the population densities within LECZs are higher than those outside them in all regions except for the small island states.
Of about 630 million people living in LECZs, 360 million are urban. This implies an urbanization level of 60 per cent, compared to a world urbanization level of slightly less than 50 per cent. In somewhat different terms, LECZs include 10 per cent of the world’s population and 13 per cent of its urban population. Table 9.2 presents the urban and rural populations and land areas in the LECZs, along with the shares that these fi gures represent.
Asia accounts for about one-third of the world’s land in LECZs, but, because of far higher population densities, it accounts for two-thirds of the urban population and almost three-quarters of the total population in the LECZs. The region with the highest share of its total land area in the LECZ is, not unexpectedly, the Small Island States, with about 16 per cent – about eight times the world average.3 What is more surprising is that the share of the total population of the Small Island States that are in the LECZ is, at 13 per cent, only 3 per cent above the world average, while the urban population share, also at 13 per cent, is the same as the world average. By way of contrast, Africa, the only region with as little as 1 per cent of its land in the LECZ and with one of the lowest population shares in the LECZ, has 12 per cent of its urban population there.
While more affl uent countries tend to be more urban, and urban settlements are more likely to be on the coast, there is no indication that these regions have
Table 9.1 Population densities inside and outside LECZs, by region, 2000
Population density in LECZ
Population density outside of LECZ
Average population density (Persons/km2) (Persons/km2) (Persons/km2)
Africa 293 25 27
Asia 529 106 118
Europe 103 31 33
Latin America 73 23 24
Australia and New Zealand
22 3 3
North America 44 16 17
Small Island States (SIS) 98 132 126
World 235 43 47
Source: Based on LECZ data generated from GRUMP for McGranahan et al (2007).
RISKSOFCLIMATE CHANGE INLOW ELEVATIONCOASTAL ZONES 173
a higher share of their populations in the LECZ (this is covered in more detail in McGranahan et al, 2007). There are marked differences in the population shares of the LECZ of two politically important income-related groups engaged in climate change negotiations: the least developed countries (LDCs) – 50 very low-income countries whose economic status is explicitly recognized as making them particularly vulnerable – and the 30 mostly high-income countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The differences, however, are the opposite from what one might expect. The LDC group has a particularly high share of both its total population and urban population in the LECZ (14 and 21 per cent respectively), despite a comparatively modest land share (1.2 per cent). OECD countries, in contrast, only have 10 per cent of their overall population and 11 per cent of their urban population, with about 2.8 per cent of the land, in the LECZ. This result is largely due to Bangladesh, an LDC with an extremely large population in the LECZ, and may well refl ect the importance of accidents of geography.
Countries with the largest urban populations or urban population shares in the LECZ
The countries that rank highest in the size of their urban population in the LECZ (see Table 9.3) are mostly countries that also rank high in their overall urban population. Indeed, four of the top fi ve countries – China, India, Japan and the US – rank in the top fi ve in terms of overall urban population. Indonesia is also highly ranked: with the fourth largest urban population in the LECZ, it has the eighth largest urban population overall. By way of contrast, most of the countries with
Table 9.2 Population and land area in the LECZ, by region, 2000
Population and land area in LECZ
Share of population and land area in LECZ
Region Population
(millions)
Land (000 km2) Population (%) Land (%) Total Urban Total Urban Total Urban Total Urban
Africa 56 31 2,191 15 7 12 1 7
Asia 466 238 2,881 113 13 18 3 12
Europe 50 40 2,490 56 7 8 2 7
Latin America 29 23 2,397 33 6 7 2 7
Australia and New Zealand
3 3 2,131 6 13 13 2 13
North America 24 21 2,553 52 8 8 3 6
Small Island States
6 4 2, 58 5 13 13 16 13
World 634 360 2,700 279 10 13 2 8
Source: McGranahan et al (2007), p23.
174 THE NEWGLOBALFRONTIER
large urban shares in the LECZ have very small urban populations. The exceptions are The Netherlands, Viet Nam, Thailand and Senegal, for all of which the urban population in the LECZ not only accounts for more than half their total urban population but also for millions of people. Combined with Bangladesh, where about half of the country’s urban population is in the LECZ, these countries would appear to pose special challenges, and it is notable that all but The Netherlands are low- or lower-middle-income countries.
Distribution of settlements of different sizes
Just as the LECZ has a greater share of the world’s urban population than of its rural population, it also contains a greater share of large urban settlements (and their inhabitants) than of small urban settlements. As illustrated in Figure 9.2 and Table 9.4, however, while the share of settlements intersecting the LECZ increases sharply with settlement size, the share of the population in the zone increases more gradually. Thus, for the world as a whole, the share of settlements intersecting the LECZ increases steadily from 13 per cent among urban settlements with populations under 100,000 to 65 per cent among cities of over 5 million.
By contrast, over the same range, the share of population living in the LECZ only increases from 7 to 21 per cent. These tendencies are evident in most regions and illustrate the dangers of focusing on large cities simply because they are more likely Table 9.3 Ranking of countries with the largest urban population counts and shares
in the LECZ, 2000
Top ten
Ranked by urban population in the LECZ
Ranked by share of urban population in the LECZ
Country Urban population in the LECZ Country4 Urban population in the LECZ
counts (000)
% of urban in LECZ
counts (000)
% of urban in LECZ
1 China 78,278 18 Suriname ,291 98
2 India 31,515 10 Guyana ,249 93
3 Japan 29,022 26 Bahamas ,214 87
4 Indonesia 22,721 28 Netherlands 10,126 76
5 US 20,282 9 Bahrain ,450 76
6 Bangladesh 15,429 50 Viet Nam 12,862 74
7 Viet Nam 12,862 74 Thailand 12,471 60
8 Thailand 12,472 60 Liberia ,291 60
9 Egypt 11,262 24 Senegal 1,2353 53
10 Netherlands 10,126 76 Djibouti ,274 52
Source: Based on LECZ data generated from GRUMP for McGranahan et al (2007).
RISKSOFCLIMATE CHANGE INLOW ELEVATIONCOASTAL ZONES 175
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
<100K 100–500K 500K–1M 1–5M 5M+
Settlement Size
Share in the LECZ (%)
Settlement share Population share
Figure 9.2 The shares of urban centres intersecting the LECZ and of urban populations residing in the LECZ, by urban settlement size
Source: Based on Tables 5 and 6 in McGranahan et al (2007), pp30–31.
Table 9.4 Shares of urban centres intersecting the LECZ and shares of urban populations residing in the LECZ, by urban settlement size and region
Region <100K 100–500K 500K–1M 1–5M >5M
A B A B A B A B A B
Africa 9 5 23 15 39 20 50 18 40 10
Asia 12 8 24 13 37 14 45 16 70 32
Europe 17 6 22 7 37 11 41 6 58 12
Latin America 11 6 25 8 43 12 38 7 50 6
Australia and New Zealand 44 16 77 20 100 26 100 10 NA NA
North America 9 4 19 7 29 6 25 5 80 13
Small Island States 51 18 61 11 67 13 100 12 NA NA
World 13 7 24 11 38 13 44 12 65 21
Note: A: share of urban centres in the size category intersecting the LECZ;
B: share of total urban population in the size category living in the LECZ.
Source: Based on Tables 5 and 6 in McGranahan et al (2007), pp30–31.
to intersect the coastal lowlands: as one would expect, large cities that intersect the coastal lowlands tend to have a smaller share of their population in the LECZ than do smaller urban centres.
176 THE NEWGLOBALFRONTIER
C
HANGES INL
OWE
LEVATIONC
OASTALS
ETTLEMENTBETWEEN1990
AND2000: T
HEE
XAMPLESOFC
HINA ANDB
ANGLADESH China is the country with the largest population in the LECZ, and Bangladesh has the third largest. Moreover, China is one of the more rapidly urbanizing countries, with particularly fast urban growth along the coast, while Bangladesh contains one of the most populous delta regions in the world and already has almost half (46 per cent) of its population in the LECZ. The settlement patterns in both of these countries raise serious concerns about the need for adaptation to climate change to start as soon as possible.As illustrated in Table 9.5, in both Bangladesh and China, the population in the LECZ grew at almost twice the national rate between 1990 and 2000.
Moreover, in both countries, the urban populations in the LECZ grew particularly rapidly. Indeed, the urban population growth in China’s LECZ was more than three times the national rate, although the GRUMP estimates of China’s urbanization rate for the period are lower than the estimates from the United Nations and the Chinese census (see note 44 in McGranahan et al, 2007).
Thus, even as the seaward hazards associated with climate change are increasing, the areas most at risk are experiencing particularly high population growth. Some of this may be due to urbanization, but the predominantly rural population of Bangladesh’s LECZ is growing at an even faster rate than the country’s urban average. The movement towards the coast in China is linked to urbanization, but it is also being driven by a trade-oriented economic strategy and policies that favour urban development along the coast.
China’s rapid urbanization and coastward population movement, and the economic liberalization and growth that are driving these demographic trends,
Table 9.5 Urban population counts and growth between 1990 and 2000 for China and Bangladesh, by total and in the LECZ
Population (000) Annual growth rate 1990–2000
Country 1990 2000
China 1,138,676 1,262,334 1.04
Urban 1,336,577 1,423,730 2.33
LECZ 1,119,103 1,143,880 1.91
Urban LECZ 1, 56,059 1, 78,278 3.39
Bangladesh 1,110,024 1,123,612 1.17
Urban 1, 23,097 1, 26,865 1.52
LECZ 1, 50,568 1, 62,524 2.14
Urban LECZ 1, 11,686 1, 15,429 2.82
Source: McGranahan et al (2007), p32.
RISKSOFCLIMATE CHANGE INLOW ELEVATIONCOASTAL ZONES 177 date back to the early 1980s (McGranahan and Tacoli, 2006). The geographical advantages of coastal development have been enhanced by the creation of special economic zones in coastal locations. It has been estimated that the advantages conferred by geography were about equal to those conferred by preferential policies (Demurger et al, 2002 and 2004). By amplifying the advantages of coastal settlement through their special economic zones, China has not only attracted more people to the coast but is establishing an urban structure that will continue to attract people there far into the future.
Overall, the risks of climate change are clearly far more threatening and intractable for Bangladesh than for China. Only about one-fi ftieth of China’s land area is in the LECZ, compared to more than two-fi fths of Bangladesh’s.
Nevertheless, China, too, faces potentially serious threats, the evolution of which depends on policy agendas that do not as yet treat climate change as a serious issue.
S
UMMARYD
ISCUSSIONFrom an environmental perspective, there is a double disadvantage to excessive coastal settlement. First, uncontrolled coastal development is likely to damage sensitive and important ecosystems and other resources. Second, coastal settlement, particularly in the lowlands, is likely to expose residents to hazards such as sea-level rise and tropical storms, both of which will probably become more serious with climate change. Yet the LECZ is more densely settled and urban than inland areas.
Moreover, there is a legitimate concern that continued urbanization will draw still greater populations and population shares into the LECZ.
Looking to the future, the responses to the growing risks to coastal settlements should include mitigation, migration and modifi cation. To avoid severe disruptions, measures for each of these need a long lead time. As the effects of climate change become increasingly clear, the location of coastal settlements most at risk should also become evident. Unfortunately, by that time, most of the easier options for shifting settlement patterns, and modifying them so that they are better adapted to the hazards of climate change, will have been foreclosed. Large companies may be able to shift the location of their activities relatively quickly, using the same procedures that have allowed them to adapt to economic globalization. Others will not fi nd it so easy. Moreover, it is already evident that settlements in the coastal lowlands, and particularly those in low-income countries and those also at risk from tropical storms, are especially vulnerable.
Particularly as the need for action becomes more urgent, care will be needed to prevent government responses themselves from being inequitable or unnecessarily disruptive economically. Economically successful urbanization is typically based on the decentralized decisions of economic enterprises and families, supported by their governments. When governments try to decide centrally where urban development
178 THE NEWGLOBALFRONTIER
should occur or where people should migrate, a range of political interests can intrude, favouring economically unviable locations and/or land-use regulations that are particularly burdensome to the urban poor. Adaptation cannot be left to the market, but nor should it be left to arbitrary central planning.
In many cases, there may be measures that can address present problems while also providing a means of adapting to climate change. These are an obvious place to start, even if such coincidences of interest are unlikely to be suffi cient to form the basis for all of the adaptive measures needed.
At the national level, measures to support previously disfavoured inland urban settlements, away from the large cities on the coast, might not only reduce risks from climate change but also support a more balanced and equitable pattern of urban development. In China, for example, giving inland urban settlements the support needed to redress the imbalance caused by the creation of special economic zones along the coast would not only help reduce coastward migration but would also reduce the increasingly severe regional inequalities that threaten China’s national integrity.
Alternatively, among coastal settlements in low-income countries, those that fi nd more equitable means to resolve the land problems that so often push their poorest urban residents to settle informally on unserviced and environmentally hazardous land (such as fl ood plains) will also be in a far better position to adapt to the risks of climate change. More generally, measures that support more effi cient and equitable resolution of existing land issues are likely to provide a better basis for addressing the land issues brought on by climate change.
Vulnerable settlements in low-income countries clearly deserve international support in these and other measures to adapt to climate change. If climate change were simply an unfortunate accident of nature, such support could be justifi ed on ethical grounds. In fact, climate change is closely associated with the past and present lifestyles of high-income groups in high-income countries. This makes it doubly important that the governments of these countries contribute to adaptation as well as to mitigation. It also implies that this assistance for adaptation should be viewed as additional to, rather than as part of, conventional development aid.
Furthermore, assistance which responds to existing local needs, contributes to other development goals and can be locally driven is the most likely to succeed.
N
OTES1 This is an abridged version of our Environment and Urbanization article (McGranahan et al, 2007), edited and in some places added to so as to focus the presentation more directly on the principal themes of this book. A signifi cant part of the text is taken from the article verbatim, or with only minor modifi cations, but the article is only cited when it includes materials that have not been reproduced in this chapter. Where tables are reproduced from the article, the article is given as the source, while unsourced tables are from the same data set but were not included in the original.
RISKSOFCLIMATE CHANGE INLOW ELEVATIONCOASTAL ZONES 179 2 More details on the methodology can be found in McGranahan et al (2007). For
access to the data and related publications, see CIESIN (undated).
3 For the purposes of Tables 9.1, 9.2 and 9.4, this group has 65 members, 32 of which are not listed as Small Island States in the IPCC regional listing.
4 Countries with an urban population of less than 100,000 were excluded from this list.
R
EFERENCESAgardy, T., Alder, J., and Dayton, P. (2005) ‘Coastal systems’, in R. Hassan, R. Scholes and N. Ash, (eds) Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing: Current Status and Trends: Findings of the Condition and Trends Working Group, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Island Press, Washington, DC, pp513–549
CIESIN (undated) ‘Low elevation coastal zone (LECZ): Urban–rural estimates’, Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center, Center for International Earth Science Information Network, Columbia University, New York, http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.
edu/gpw/lecz.jsp, last accessed 17 December 2007
CIESIN, IFPRI, World Bank and CIAT (2006) ‘Global Rural–Urban Mapping Project (GRUMP), alpha version: Urban extents grids’, Global Rural–Urban Mapping Project, Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC), Columbia University, Palisades, NY, http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw, last accessed February 2006 Demurger, S., Sachs, J. D., Woo, W. T., Bao, S. M. and Chang, G. (2002) ‘The relative
contributions of location and preferential policies in China’s regional development:
Being in the right place and having the right incentives’, China Economic Review, vol 13, no 4, pp444–465
Demurger, S., Sachs, J. D., Woo, W. T., Bao, S. and Chang, G. H. (2004) ‘Explaining unequal distribution of economic growth among China provinces: Geography or policy?’, in A. Chen, G. G. Liu and K. H. Zhang (eds) Urbanization and Social Welfare in China, Ashgate, Aldershot, UK, pp269–306
Dilley, M., Chen, R. S., Deichmann, U., Lerner-Lam, A. L. and Arnold, M. (2005) Natural Disaster Hotspots: A Global Risk Analysis, World Bank, Washington, DC Dreier, P. (2006) ‘Katrina and power in America’, Urban Affairs Review, vol 41, no 4,
pp528–549
Ericson, J. P., Vorosmarty, C. J., Dingman, S. L., Ward, L. G. and Meybeck, M. (2006)
‘Effective sea-level rise and deltas: Causes of change and human dimension implications’, Global and Planetary Change, vol 50, nos 1–2, pp63–82
Few, R. and Matthies, F. (eds) (2006) Flood Hazards and Health: Responding to Present and Future Risks, Earthscan, London
Fujita, M. and Thisse, J-F. (2002) Economics of Agglomeration: Cities, Industrial Location, and Regional Growth, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK
Fujita, M., Krugman, P. R. and Venables, A. (1999) The Spatial Economy: Cities, Regions, and International Trade, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA
Han, S. S. and Yan, Z. X. (1999) ‘China’s coastal cities: Development, planning and challenges’, Habitat International, vol 23, no 2, pp217–229
Hardoy, J. E., Mitlin, D. and Satterthwaite, D. (2001) Environmental Problems in an Urbanizing World, Earthscan, London
180 THE NEWGLOBALFRONTIER
Henderson, J. V. and Thisse, J-F. (eds) (2004) Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics:
Volume 4: Cities and Geography, Elsevier North-Holland, Amsterdam
IPCC (2007) ‘Summary for policymakers’, in S. Solomon, D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K. B. Averyt, M. Tignor and H. L. Miller (eds) Climate Change 2007:
The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY
ISciences (2003) ‘SRTM30 Enhanced Global Map: Elevation/Slope/Aspect’ (release 1.0), ISciences, Ann Arbor, MI
Klein, R. J. T., Nicholls, R. J. and Thomalla, F. (2003) ‘Resilience to natural hazards: How useful is this concept?’, Global Environmental Change Part B: Environmental Hazards, vol 5, nos 1–2, pp35–45
McGranahan, G., and Tacoli, C. (2006) ‘Rural–urban migration, urban poverty and urban environmental pressures in China’, contribution to the China Council Task Force on Sustainable Urbanisation Strategies, International Institute for Environment and Development, London
McGranahan, G., Marcotullio, P. J., Bai, X., Balk, D., Braga, T., Douglas, I., Elmquist, T., Rees, W., Satterthwaite, D., Songsore, J. and Zlotnik, H. (2005) ‘Urban systems’, in R. Hassan, R. Scholes and N. Ash (eds) Ecosystems and Human Wellbeing: Current Status and Trends, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, Island Press, Washington, DC, pp795–825
McGranahan, G., Balk, D. and Anderson, B. (2007) ‘The rising tide: Assessing the risks of climate change and human settlements in low elevation coastal zones’, Environment and Urbanization, vol 19, no 1, pp17–37
Montgomery, M. R., Stren, R., Cohen, B. and Reed, H. E. (eds) (2003) Cities Transformed:
Demographic Change and its Implications in the Developing World, Panel on Urban Dynamics, National Research Council, National Academy Press, Washington, DC Nicholls, R. J. (2002) ‘Rising sea levels: Potential impacts and responses’, in R. E. Hester
and R. M. Harrison (eds) Global Environmental Change, Issues in Environmental Science and Technology, vol 17, Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge, pp83–107 Nicholls, R. J. (2004) ‘Coastal fl ooding and wetland loss in the 21st century: Changes
under the SRES climate and socioeconomic scenarios’, Global Environmental Change, vol 14, no 1, pp69–86
Nicholls, R. J., Hoozemans, F. M. J. and Marchand, M. (1999) ‘Increasing fl ood risk and wetland losses due to global sea-level rise: Regional and global analyses’, Global Environmental Change, vol 9, supplement 1, ppS69–S87
Nicholls, R. J., Wong, P. P., Burkett V., Codignotto, J. O., Hay, J. E., McLean, R. F., Ragoonaden, S. and Woodroffe, C. D. (2007) ‘Coastal systems and low-lying areas’, in M. L. Parry, O. F. Canziani, J. P. Palutikof, P. J. van der Linden and C. E. Hanson (eds) Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp315–356
Pelling, M. (2003) The Vulnerability of Cities: Natural Disasters and Social Resilience, Earthscan, London
Rakodi, C. and Treloar, D. (1997) ‘Urban development and coastal zone management:
An international review’, Third World Planning Review, vol 19, no 4, pp401–424