Country sees highest coastal sea levels since 1980

The highest coastal sea level for more than four decades has increased impacts caused by marine disasters and eroded coastal facilities, according to a bulletin released by the Ministry of Natural Resources on Wednesday.

Last year, China's coastal sea level was 94 millimeters higher than normal years, or the average between 1993 and 2011. It is the highest level since 1980, the China Sea Level Bulletin said.

The coastal sea level has been rising at a higher rate in recent years. The rate has increased from 3.5 millimeters a year between 1980 and last year to 4 mm annually between 1993 and last year, the bulletin said. The rate was higher than the global average, it added.

In coastal cities, high sea levels can fuel disasters caused by storm surges. Last year, economic losses reached 2.38 billion yuan ($346 million) due to five storm-surge disasters, according to the 2022 Bulletin of China Marine Disasters.

"The surges caused about 99 percent of the economic losses from marine disasters last year. For example, in July, Typhoon Chaba made landfall on the coast of Maoming, Guangdong province and brought a storm surge that damaged marine aquaculture, coastal tourism and protection facilities," Wang Hua, head of the ministry's marine early warning and monitoring department, said at a news conference on Wednesday.

Compared with 2021, salty tide intrusions in the Yangtze River and Pearl River estuaries were enhanced and coastal erosion in parts of Jiangsu, Guangdong and Hainan provinces intensified, the China Sea Level Bulletin said.

Rising seawater eroded more coastal areas in Liaoning, Shandong and Jiangsu provinces last year than in 2021, the bulletin added.

Erosion can coarsen sand, damage soil, destroy infrastructure and cause economic losses, said an essay published by the ministry.

Wang said that despite the rising sea level, direct economic losses, and deaths and missing people, were fewer than average over the past decade, accounting for 34 percent and 23 percent of the average.

That is due to improvements in the marine early warning and monitoring system. The number of marine observation stations in China has increased by more than 30 percent compared with the 2016-20 period, according to Wang.