Posted on June 18, 2025
Leading hubs need to do much more to adapt to rising sea levels, report shows
The world’s top ports need investments of up to $768bn to handle sea level rises of up to 40 cm by 2050.
A report from US bank JP Morgan said many ports are at serious risk of flooding and hurricanes or typhoons.
The “Sea Change: Port infrastructure, climate risks and the future of global trade” paper puts the US port of Houston and Shanghai in China at the top of the list due to their size and location.
The report author, Sarah Kapnick, global head of climate advisory at JP Morgan, wrote that more ports have invested in climate mitigation than adaptation.
She said 31 of the 35 largest ports have developed mitigation plans, while only 23 have adaptation plans.
Adaptation takes time, the report said. A port beginning the process today will spend three to four years on planning and gaining permits, with up to five years on construction and three on operational ramp-up.
However, it said the reduction in disruption can be significant.
Houston tops JP Morgan’s list of the top 50 ports at risk.
The report quotes the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, which estimates that the Port of Galveston in Texas could be out of service for an average of 170 days a year by 2050, though this could be as high as 250.
Today, it experiences about 10 days of downtime a year.
A number of ports are at risk of having more than 10 downtime days.
The report notes that there are also ports impacted for a similar number of days because of the downtime at other ports.
Flooding can be due to stormwater surges, rain and rivers. It also said wind damage in extreme storms is an issue that ports need to take into account.
Additional problems emerge when a large hurricane or typhoon has a damage track that is 300 nautical miles wide, disrupting multiple ports in a region.
“The cascading effects of physical asset damage, port closures, trade disruptions, and collocated high-value energy infrastructure could lead to multibillion-dollar loss events,” Kapnick wrote.
“For example, LNG terminals have been built in these high hurricane risk zones in the US.”
