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Earth

Disappearing deltas could spell disaster

By Jeff Hecht

15 February 2006

HURRICANE Katrina, which ravaged New Orleans and left more than half a million people displaced, showed just how dangerous living in a flood-prone delta can be. For some researchers this came as no surprise. They think that by 2050, millions more living in low-lying river deltas will be equally vulnerable to rising sea levels, sinking land and storms.

Jason Ericson of the University of New Hampshire in Durham, now at the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation in Richmond, and his colleagues identified five other deltas that could face similar, if not more devastating, disasters: the Bengal delta in Bangladesh,…

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