Forecast of impacts of sea-level rise on the low colonized islands and their surrounding waters in the Changjiang River mouth

As a worldwide authoritative, IPCC forecasted in 1990 that the world- s sea level would most probably rise by 0. 66 m by the end of the 21 st century. Combined with the local depression caused by the sink of the earth's crust and the human activity, the relative sea level in the Chanaiiang River mouth will rise by about 1. 0 m during the same peried. Based on this figure, the article forecasted the impacts of sea-level rise on the safety coefficient of coastal structures and civil facilities, loss of wetlands, flood hazard as well as water intrusion. The results show that: 1 ) 40% as large as the present engil1eering mass should be added to the coastal structures in order to maintain the safety coefficient; 2 ) a dynamic loss of 60 km2 of wetlands, as much as 15% of the present total area, would be caused; 3) to hinder the increase inflood hazard dy11amic capacity to drain water must increase by at least 34 times as large as the present; 4) to maintain the present navigation conditions, about 100 million yuan (RMB) is needed to reconstruct over 30(X) bridges and 30 sluices;and 5 ) the disastrous salt water intrusion caused by the sea-level rise could be encountered by the increase in water discharge from the Three Gorge Reservoir in the dry season.