The Guardian view on rising sea levels: adaptation has never been more urgent | Editorial

Stark warnings about threatened coastal areas should prompt fresh efforts to protect those most at risk

In his classic study of the 17th-century Dutch golden age, The Embarrassment of Riches, the art historian SimonSchama showed how the biblical story of Noah's ark resonated in a culture where catastrophic floods were an ever-present threat. The history of the Netherlands includes multiple instances of storms breaching dikes, leading to disastrous losses of life and land. These traumatic episodes were reflected in the country's art and literature, as well as its engineering.

In countries where floods are less of a danger, memories tend to be more localised: a mark on a wall showing how high waters rose when a town's river flooded; a seaside garden such as the one in Felixstowe, Suffolk, to commemorate the night in 1953 when 41people lost their lives there.