Island of Saint-Louis

* Île de Saint-Louis (French)

Cityscape of Saint-Louis Island

Shown within Senegal

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Island of Saint-Louis (Africa)

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Location| Saint-Louis, Senegal
Coordinates| 16°1′40.008″N 16°30′15.984″W﻿ / ﻿16.02778000°N 16.50444000°W﻿ / 16.02778000; -16.50444000
Type| Settlement

UNESCO World Heritage Site

Official name| Island of Saint-Louis
Type| Cultural
Criteria| (ii)(iv)
Designated| 2013
Reference no.| 956bis
Region| African States

The Island of Saint-Louis is the historic part of the city of Saint-Louis in Senegal.[1] In 2000, it was inscribed by the UNESCO on the World Heritage list.[2]

## History

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Founded as a French colonial settlement in the 17th century, Saint-Louis was urbanised in the mid-19th century. It was the capital of Senegal from 1872 to 1957 and played an important cultural and economic role in the whole of West Africa. The location of the town on an island at the mouth of the Senegal River, its regular town plan, the system of quays, and the characteristic colonial architecture give Saint-Louis its distinctive appearance and identity.[2]

## Climate change

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Main article: Sea level rise

In 2022, the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report included the Island of Saint-Louis in the list of African cultural sites which would be threatened by flooding and coastal erosion by the end of the century, but only if climate change followed RCP 8.5, which is the scenario of high and continually increasing greenhouse gas emissions associated with the warming of over 4 °C.,[3] and is no longer considered very likely.[4][5] The other, more plausible scenarios result in lower warming levels and consequently lower sea level rise: yet, sea levels would continue to increase for about 10,000 years under all of them.[6] Even if the warming is limited to 1.5 °C, global sea level rise is still expected to exceed 2–3 m (7–10 ft) after 2000 years (and higher warming levels will see larger increases by then), consequently exceeding 2100 levels of sea level rise under RCP 8.5 (~0.75 m (2 ft) with a range of 0.5–1 m (2–3 ft)) at some earlier point.[7]

## Sources

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This article incorporates text from a free content work. Licensed under CC BY-SA IGO 3.0 (license statement/permission). Text taken from Historic Centre of Agadez​, UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

## References

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1. ^ "Saint-Louis | Senegal | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Retrieved 2021-12-22.
2. ^ a b "Island of Saint-Louis". UNESCO World Heritage Centre. Retrieved 2021-12-22.
3. ^ Trisos, C.H., I.O. Adelekan, E. Totin, A. Ayanlade, J. Efitre, A. Gemeda, K. Kalaba, C. Lennard, C. Masao, Y. Mgaya, G. Ngaruiya, D. Olago, N.P. Simpson, and S. Zakieldeen 2022: Chapter 9: Africa. In Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability [H.-O. Pörtner, D.C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E.S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke,V. Möller, A. Okem, B. Rama (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 2043–2121
4. ^ Hausfather, Zeke; Peters, Glen (29 January 2020). "Emissions – the 'business as usual' story is misleading". Nature. 577 (7792): 618–20. Bibcode:2020Natur.577..618H. doi:10.1038/d41586-020-00177-3. PMID 31996825.
5. ^ Hausfather, Zeke; Peters, Glen (20 October 2020). "RCP8.5 is a problematic scenario for near-term emissions". PNAS. 117 (45): 27791–27792. doi:10.1073/pnas.2017124117. PMC 7668049.
6. ^ Technical Summary. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (PDF). IPCC. August 2021. p. TS14. Retrieved 12 November 2021.
7. ^ IPCC, 2021: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Masson-Delmotte, V., P. Zhai, A. Pirani, S.L. Connors, C. Péan, S. Berger, N. Caud, Y. Chen, L. Goldfarb, M.I. Gomis, M. Huang, K. Leitzell, E. Lonnoy, J.B.R. Matthews, T.K. Maycock, T. Waterfield, O. Yelekçi, R. Yu, and B. Zhou (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, pp. 3−32, doi:10.1017/9781009157896.001.