New report warns of Sligo areas at risk of being submerged by 2030

Data suggests areas could be “lost to the sea” but OPW disputes accuracy of these claims and relevancy of data to Irish coasts

PARTS of County Sligo could be lost to the sea by 2030 if global temperatures continue to rise.

Climate Central, an American research group based in Princeton, New Jersey, monitor sea levels worldwide and document what could happened to current land areas should they rise.

Should the two degree rise in temperature continue to go on without being stopped, by 2030 Co. Sligo could look different to what it does now.

While the land predicted to be affected is not as a large a percentage as Derry – who will be looking for a railway station and airport if the forecast is correct, changes are afoot.

The 2030 maps show areas marked in red are predicted to be submerged with those in light blue will be under threat from water if sea levels don’t stop rising.

Sligo town centre will see the Michael Hughes bridge on the N4 susceptible to flooding as will the bridge that links the R292 and R286 roads.

However, the stretch of the N16 road near both the hospital and the ATU University will be gone.

Further afield, the northbound R291will be washed out, while those wishing to head off to Co. Mayo will have difficulty with the townlands at Tanrego Intake and Lisduff being submerged.

Elsewhere in the county, Conors Island will be completely cut off as will the townland of Raghly. Coney Island will lose a third of its land while only a tiny bit of Maguins Island will remain.

However, a spokesman for the Office of Public Works (OPW) insisted that Climate Central’s forecasts do not take into account a lot of other factors and that the predicted maps may not be so bleak.

He said: “It is not possible to comment directly on the maps provided for Sligo as the specific projection type, sea level rise scenario, year, and other parameters used in the mapping tool are not known.

“However it is noted that these maps were produced for a global coverage using global datasets.

“They do not take account of local tide gauges, topography and bathymetry surveys, coastal defences, detailed inundation modelling, or other data which significantly influences this type of mapping.

“Similar assessments, specific to Ireland and using this type of data, provide higher confidence when assessing the impacts of sea level rise in Ireland.

“The World Meteorological Organisation have estimated that global sea levels increased by 4.6mm/ year between 2013 and 2022 inclusive (or 46mm in a ten-year period).

“This is an acceleration from a rate of 3.3mm/year between 2003 and 2012 inclusive (or 33mm in a 10-year period).

“Sea level rise of up to one metre by the end of the century is quite possible if the rate of sea level rise continues to increase over the course of the century.

“The OPW have produced a range of flood maps that depict potential future scenarios to assist in informing the potential impacts of sea level rise at different communities.

“The ‘Mid-Range Future Scenario’ shows the impact of a 0.5 metre increase in sea levels for a range of flood events, and the ‘High-End Future Scenario’ shows the impact of a one metre increase in sea levels.

“Flood extent and depth maps are available for Ireland on floodinfo.ie.

“It is also noted that ‘losing land to the sea’ and ‘land lost to the sea’ terminology can be misleading in the context of coastal flooding.

“These terms are more typically used in the context of coastal erosion, which the maps referenced do not predict.

“An area of land that floods periodically, for example during a period of extreme coastal water levels, is not lost to the sea – it is at risk of coastal flooding. This coastal flooding is temporary, not permanent.”

Meanwhile, Kelly Van Baalen of Climate Central said: “The map uses the latest sea level rise models from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and CoastalDEM, our high-accuracy global elevation dataset designed for coastal flood risk analyses, to project what land may permanently fall beneath the high tide line depending on how much we warm the planet.

“While we are confident that our methodology is the best for producing global maps of sea level rise and coastal flood risk, we acknowledge that big datasets, like the ones behind our maps, always include some errors and may not incorporate locally important features such as coastal defences.

“Sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate, leading to more and worse coastal flooding that disrupts daily life, damages housing and infrastructure, and puts people’s health at risk.

“Unfortunately, the heat-trapping pollution we have already put into the atmosphere means that we expect to see global mean sea levels rise about another 0.2 m by 2050.

“But what happens after that is very much up to us and how much pollution we emit.

“So to safeguard coastal communities, we both need to stop burning fossil fuels to limit sea level rise to a manageable level and we need to adapt to the sea level rise and increase in coastal flooding we have already caused.”