Nantucket: Living with Water

Abstract

Today, our 2101 world map looks very different from that of 2020. The sea levels have risen more or less by twelve-foot across the globe. Most of the famous beaches of the world have disappeared into the oceans. The coastal cities like Miami, Venice, Mumbai, have become something else entirely - famous diving spots to explore the submerged cities. While atoll islands like the Maldives are lost to the ocean, there are a number of metropolis islands formed by the ocean. With every rising inch of sea level, the water continues to invade more of the coastline, spearing deeper and deeper into the cities. These islands are low-lying cities that are now disconnected from the mainland by ocean. Today the metropolis island of New York City is a hundreds of skyscrapers rising from the ocean interconnected by networks of water canals and skybridges. Like New York City, most of the metropolitan cities around the world exhausted their city budgets to survive with the rising sea. Some strategized to avoid and resist while some to accommodate. Only a few succeeded and these few are still struggling to survive even today, since the same story persists - the global warming is melting ice sheets, and the sea levels are rising. The rising water is engulfing more and more land making continents grow apart.