Paper short abstract:

Climate change poses unprecedented threats to coastal areas in the Mediterranean. Drawing on ongoing researches on coastal wetlands, this paper speculates on the necessity of rethinking anthropological lenses to look at the Mediterranean, its shores, and its people in the current ecological crisis.

Paper long abstract:

Climate change poses unprecedented threats to coastal areas in the Mediterranean, with raising temperatures jeopardising water resources, extreme meteorological events causing damages to local agriculture, and sea level rise that will likely impact the most productive and populated Mediterranean regions, compromising the necessary infrastructures on which local economy and dwelling depend. These problems make the Mediterranean a hotspot of climate change where, according to current models, warming is going to be greater than the global average, with heat peaks in summer, higher frequency of droughts and floods, and greater variability in rainfall and temperature. These processes are exacerbated by phenomena of subsidence, coastal erosion, deterioration of water quality, and overexploitation of groundwater resources, mainly due to increasing urbanisation, intensive agriculture, and seasonal beach tourism. This context of environmental uncertainty, in the grip of the Anthropocene, raises challenges to anthropologists exploring the Mediterranean. Drawing on my research on coastal wetlands, this paper speculates on the necessity of rethinking anthropological lenses to look at the Mediterranean, its shores, and its people in the age of climate change.