Climate Change, Sea Level Rise and Food Security

There are strong relationships in climate change, sea level rise and food security, as explored under the following discussions. It can be argued that climatic change affects different dimensions of food security such as food availability, food utilization, food accessibility and stability of food systems. Moreover, climatic changes have severe effects on human health, food production, livelihood assets, food distribution channels, market flows, and consumer purchasing power.  This implies that climatic changes are experienced in both long term and short term. The former is caused by more frequent and extreme weather events, while the latter results from temperature changes and the changes in the precipitation patterns.

Greenhouse gases that accumulate in the atmosphere cause the average global temperatures to rise, and these in turn raise the sea level. The rising average global temperatures are mainly caused by burning oil, coal and gas for meeting higher demands for energy as well as intensive agricultural practices for meeting increasingly high food demand that is always associated with deforestation.  Such climatic changes, accompanied by sea level rise can cause long term weather condition changes. In this regard, the performance of food systems across the globe depends on climate. Effects of climatic changes on food systems are mainly experienced in areas that rely mostly on rain-fed agriculture. Significant impacts of climatic changes are experienced on both energy and water used for food production, processing, transport and storage.

Increasing sea level and rising extreme climatic changes poses more risks for individuals who reside in the affected zones. Such sea level rise and climatic change lead to a drop in food production. The effects of sea level rise are worsened by variable precipitation, shrinking glaciers, more floods and drought. In summary, climatic change, sea level rise and food security are closely linked, because both the former and the latter have more impacts of food production across the globe.