The city could lose 25.32 sq km — roughly 1,700 Wankhede stadiums (0.0148 sq km) — of its urban sprawl to coastal inundation caused by a 1m sea level rise over the next 100 years, according to a study.
The author also said the protection of mangroves play a significant role in protecting the city.
The ‘Impacts of predicted sea level rise on land use/land cover categories of coastal areas of Mumbai megacity’ study by a research scholar from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) identified urban areas including housing societies, commercial complexes, roads, infrastructure such as flyovers, bridges etc., ports, slum settlements and few open spaces, that could be affected by coastal inundation.
What makes this is a possibility, according to Malay Kumar Pramanik, author of the paper and PhD scholar, JNU, is that the current annual sea level rise is between 2.5 and 3 millimetres (mm).
