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Unlike other effects of climate change that are not tangibly experienced on a large scale, rising sea levels are a visible and relentless indicator of global warming, the impact of which is felt globally. Some people are still skeptical, but there is nothing to deny that sea-level rise, reinforced by storms and storm surges, is the reason for erosion, floods and dislocations and leads to catastrophic damage along the coasts as well as inland. Rising sea levels are also a destabilizing factor for the financial and real estate markets, in particular because of the increased insurance costs.

The book is presented as a kind of investigation to show the environmental, economic and social disturbances linked to sea-level rise in a striking and concrete way. The author has documented the American East Coast (from Maine to Florida) and the Gulf of Mexico (from Florida to Texas) as an example of our vulnerability to climate change. The images are illustrating the different states of the territories overflown in the different seasons, before and after major weather events (storms, hurricanes) when the geography and the landscape change dramatically.

Alex MacLean has established a list of themes to photograph: natural spaces and their disorderly settlement, public and private defenses, but also coastal infrastructure projects such as airports, nuclear power plants, highways and waste water treatment plants. The list also includes natural areas such as ”ghost forests” asphyxiated by salt water infiltration.

To tell this story, it was also important to balance the account of risks and destruction with a more positive vision. Therefore, the book also describes resilience strategies such as natural systems to dissipate storm surges or improving facilities in parks and ”conservation lands” which would receive flood water without suffering lingering damage, all the strategies which set an example while the awareness of the phenomenon of rising sea levels is still far from being raised in Europe. The book is introduced by a brilliant speech by Bill McKibben, one of the major climate activists.

Alex MacLean is an American pilot, photographer and environmental activist. Trained as an architect, he depicts the history and evolution of the territory, describing the changes caused by human intervention.