The World's Shorelines Are Shrinking — These Are the Beautiful Beaches That Might Be Hit the Hardest

Beaches in Nigeria, Cyprus, and Italy top the list of most vulnerable.

Carefree days lounging on the sand are a hallmark of an idyllic vacation for many travelers. But beaches themselves are a commodity, vulnerable to retreat that’s exacerbated by climate change. In fact, nearly half of the Earth’s sandy beaches could be extinct by 2100, according to a study published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature Climate Change.

“We need to understand that nature tends to always change and the shoreline is very dynamic,” Michalis Vousdoukas, an oceanographer and lead author of the study, told Travel + Leisure.

While it’s natural for the shorelines to retreat, in normal conditions, the back of the beach would also shift and the sandy area would keep its overall size. The problem: in most cases, humans have built up those backlines of the beach, which means that indeed beaches will start disappearing.

To put that into practical terms for travelers, the site HawaiianIslands.com merged the data with the most reviewed beaches on Tripadvisor in each country, to show just how much of the planet's beaches could be lost before the end of the century.

Topping its list is Landmark Beach in Lagos, Nigeria, which is predicted to lose 3,012.8 feet of shoreline; Mackenzie Beach in Larnaca, Cyprus, which is expected to lose 2,168.3 feet; and Spiaggia La Cinta in San Teodoro, Italy, which could lose up to 1,687 feet.

The reason these are so endangered is because they’re “low lying and relatively narrow, so they are vulnerable to shoreline retreats,” Vousdoukas said.

Rounding out the top 10 globally are Praia Da Costa Do Sol in Maputo, Mozambique; Kuakata Sea Beach in Patuakhali, Bangladesh; KaByar Wa Beach in KaByar Wa, Myanmar; Entry of Elegushi Beach in Lekki, Nigeria; Royal Commission Beach Yanbu in Yanbu Al Bahr, Saudi Arabia; Simaisma North Beach in Al Daayen, Qatar; and Al Thakeera Beach in Al Khor, Qatar.

In North America, Playa Akumal in Cancun tops the list with 872.3 feet, Playa Veracruz in Panama City in second with 664 feet, and Clearwater Beach in Longboat Key, Florida, with 634.5 feet. (The latter is the only American beach in the top 15 on the continent.)

“Overall North American beaches are less natural and more managed than South American ones,” Vousdoukas said. “In South America, there are natural and anthropogenic erosion processes going on which combined with shoreline retreat will lead to more erosion.”

The top five South American beaches are all in Brazil, with the Beach of Morro Branco in Beberibe, Praia Dos Carneirdos in Tamanandaré, and Porto De Galinhas in Ipojuca, topping the list.

Currently, sandy beaches make up more than one-third of the shorelines around the globe, the study said, and the best way to mitigate the issue would be to reduce greenhouse gasses. Just a moderate amount of emission reduction could save up to 40 percent of the shoreline retreat.

But right now, the more humans build up those shorelines, the more we threaten their natural movement. “So we need to understand the importance of keeping the coastline as natural as possible and free of hard, permanent structures,”  Vousdoukas said.

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