Editing IPCC:AR6/WGII/Chapter-16 (section)

===== 16.5.3.4.2 Exposure trends in deltas =====

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Next to the trends in hazards, future exposure of and in deltas is shaped particularly by the increase of population and infrastructure and the intensification of land use. Over the recent years, the population has been rising in major deltas, roughly along with overall national population trends ( [[#Szabo--2016|Szabo et al., 2016]] ). In 2017, 339 million people lived in deltas with a high exposure to flooding, cyclones and other coastal hazards ( [[#Edmonds--2020|Edmonds et al., 2020]] ). Over 40% of the global population exposed to flooding from tropical cyclones lived in deltas, more than 90% of which in developing countries and emerging economies (ibid.). Looking into the future, population in low-elevation coastal zones is expected to increase by 2050 across all SSPs with diverging developments in the second half of the century, and at the end of the century will reach well over 1 billion people in SSP3 ( [[#Jones--2016|Jones and O’Neill, 2016]] ; [[#Merkens--2016|Merkens et al., 2016]] ). A major part of this population is expected to reside in deltas with large cities or mega-urban agglomerations such as the Pearl River Delta, China. One of the first studies using the SSP-RCP framework on the delta scale suggests a strong increase in intensive agricultural land by the middle of the century in three SSPs (2, 3, 5) in the Volta Delta, Ghana, while the Mahanadi, India, and the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna do not show a significant further increase ( [[#Kebede--2018|Kebede et al., 2018]] ). Hence, the amount of population and infrastructure as well as agricultural land is expected to rise further under certain SSPs, further increasing the exposure to future climate hazards.

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