Map 'shows effects of climate change'

The effects of global climate change can be seen on a new atlas that shows shrinking lakes and rising sea levels, a map maker has said.

In the four years since the last edition of the Times Comprehensive Atlas Of The World went on sale, cartographers have been forced to redraw coastlines and reclassify types of land.

The main culprits are climate change and ill-conceived irrigation projects, the atlas's editors said.

Particularly badly-hit parts of the world include the Aral Sea in central Asia which has been reduced by three-quarters in the past 40 years, and Lake Chad which has shrunk by a massive 95 per cent since 1963.

The Dead Sea is some 25 metres lower than it was 50 years ago and sections of some rivers - including the Rio Grande and Colorado in America, the Tigris in the Middle East and the Yellow River in China - are now drying out each summer.

Bangladesh is particularly susceptible to heavier rains and rising sea waters as a result of climate change, with land disappearing into the ocean.

And there are fears that some places, particularly low-lying Pacific islands such as Tuvalu, could be quite literally wiped off the map in the coming years by rising sea levels, turning their populations into "climate refugees".

Cartographers are also keeping a close eye on the village of Shishmaref, Alaska, where the sea is creeping inland by up to three metres a year.

Editor-in-chief Mick Ashworth said: "We can literally see environmental disasters unfolding before our eyes. We have a real fear that in the near future famous geographical features will disappear forever.

On a good note, the atlas reveals that 13 per cent of the world's land area is designated as protected and large areas of the Mesopotamian Marshlands in Iraq, which were drained by Saddam Hussein, are now being re-flooded and restored.

But the atlas also says that 40 per cent of known coral reefs have been destroyed or degraded and more than 1 per cent of tropical rainforest is cleared each year - potentially hastening climate change.

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