Climate Hazards
Impacts
Climate change impacts all areas of life, from human health, to infrastructure, to the environment. Climate change can increase both the intensity and frequency of impacts but can also create new impacts in areas that didn't previously exist. The impacts listed below may result due to multiple hazards (i.e. warmer temperatures and increased precipitation) and are interconnected.
- Increase in heat-related illnesses
- Increase in vector-borne diseases (i.e. Lyme)
- Strain on the health care system
- Worsening air pollution
- Degraded water quality
- Change in property value and municipal tax base
- Contaminated groundwater
- Changes in food supply
- Harm to natural resource economy (fishing, agriculture)
- Increased damage to buildings, roads, bridges, marinas
- Coastal and inland flooding
- Strain on stormwater and wastewater systems
- Coastal and inland erosion Increased energy consumption
- Disruption to emergency services and public transportation
- Marine and terrestrial ecosystems
- Ocean stratification
- Agricultural shifts (i.e. longer growing seasons)
- Increased frequency of pest outbreaks
- Shifting marine and terrestrial ecosystems (i.e. invasive species)
- Wildfires
- Decline in ecosystem health - particularly shellfish
- Agriculture damage
- Changing groundwater levels and salt accumulation in soil