The shaky foundations of Alexandria are being eroded by climate crisis

The relationship between Alexandria and the sea is profound, complicated. The Egyptian city, the most densely populated of the southern Mediterranean basin, is quite narrow, elongated and coastal-facing. It is sometimes a blessing, and sometimes a curse, to never be too far from the ocean.

The Mediterranean can be felt throughout the metropolis. The waves of vehicles that drive down its miles of seaside promenade present a stark contrast to the calm of the people who sit along its seawall. The ocean filters into the city’s core, which is full of fish markets and seafood restaurants that can be difficult to find in the interior of the predominately arid country. It is even present in its Roman ruins, Andalusian holdovers, buildings designed by Italian architects and Greek social clubs.

Alexandria is among Africa’s densest cities, and one of the world’s most exposed to the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels and increasing storms and cyclones. This combination is especially worrisome, given that more than half of its residential areas are informal neighborhoods located near the water, where dozens of buildings are already beginning to crumble.

“Alexandria, the city of Alexander the Great, is one of the first great historical cities to begin partially collapsing in modern history under the effects of climate change,” say coastal landscape transformation expert Sara Fouad and space scientist Essam Heggy, who have studied the phenomenon. “And it is probable that the pace of its collapse will increase notably if measures of mitigation are not soon adopted,” they warn.

City among the waves

Alexandria was once at a similar crossroads in ancient times, when it was best known for its imposing lighthouse — one of the seven wonders of the world — and its famous library. In fact, parts of its royal quarter and other areas were swallowed up by the sea due to natural causes such as tidal waves. Today, many of these remains still lie on the seabed, a reminder of an age-old struggle.

Alexandria sits on a privileged position along the Nile, nestled between a lake to the south and the Mediterranean Sea to the north. Over the centuries, however, its location has become a dangerous trap. There’s nowhere for the city to retreat, despite the fact that it is sinking due to tectonic forces, and its coastline is receding due to the Nile’s sediments, as sea levels gradually rise and seawater increasingly penetrates the city’s foundations.

Currently, the level of the Mediterranean in the Alexandria area rises by a yearly average of 1.5 millimeters, according to Essam Fouad, a researcher at Egypt’s Coastal Research Institute. Meanwhile, the land on which Alexandria is located sinks each year between one and 1.5 millimeters. And though it varies by neighborhood, latest studies calculate that the Alexandrian coast experienced an average erosion of nearly 12 feet every year between 2001 and 2021.

Mohamed Abdrabo, director of the Alexandria Research Center for Adaptation to Climate Change thinks that contradictory — and occasionally doomsday — studies on rising sea levels have led many locals to be skeptical. He thinks that another challenge presented by such gradual change is that it is difficult to see and doesn’t often lead to a great sense of urgency.

“In Egypt, we give priority to the present,” says the researcher, who underlines that many people think “that someone will take care of all of that” when it is time. “If you mention climate change in Alexandria, people talk about two things that they are starting to observe: storms and street flooding in the winter, [and then] the hottest summer they’ve ever experienced,” he says.

But a study published in February by the scientific journal Earth’s Future had its gaze on another tangible effect: the collapse of housing. Its research analyzed the collapse of more than 280 buildings in Alexandria between 2001 and 2021, concluded that the incidents were accelerating, and that they are related to the serious erosion of the coast and the rise in sea levels, of the intrusion of seawater and subterranean saline water.

Until now, the collapse of Alexandrian buildings has tended to be linked to factors like poor maintenance and sewage infrastructure. They’ve also been seen as tied to inadequate regulations and, following the 2011 revolution, to uncontrolled urban expansion and unlicensed home construction. But such factors are also common in cities located in the country’s interior, where there have been comparatively fewer collapses.

In Alexandria, coastal erosion leads seawater to filter into coastal aquifers, increasing subterranean levels of salt water, which alters the stability of the city’s ground and corrodes the foundations of its buildings, which in the long term increases the risk of collapse, according to the study. The high frequency of Mediterranean cyclones, which are also associated with climate change, is causing additional wear and tear to the city’s buildings.

“The correlation between coastal retreat, land subsidence and building collapse in Alexandria was not entirely unexpected, as the region’s vulnerability has long been recognized,” Fouad and Heggy wrote in an email. “But we were surprised by the magnitude and scale of the areas vulnerable to future collapses,” they acknowledged.

In their research, they observed that the highest number of building collapses took place in a western part of the city, the Gharb district, which is located around a half-mile from the area of the coastline that has undergone extreme erosion. The study also warns that around 40% of the buildings in Alexandria are located less than .6 miles from the sea and that there are at least 7,000 buildings in the city that run the risk of collapsing.

Aside from climate phenomena, the researchers placed part of the responsibility for these collapses on management by authorities. “Alexandria has been left behind due to a deficient mitigation of climate change driven by its denial,” say Fouad and Heggy. “The cause [of this crisis] is not solely the seriousness of climate change, but also its denial among the politicians in charge and in public opinion,” they say.

The researchers have continued documenting building collapses in Alexandria and report that between January 2023 and April 2025, they registered a total of 43, both total and partial, which left 32 dead and 37 wounded. “This confirms the trends that we predicted in the study, in the sense that the incidents will shoot up over time, until mitigation is increased,” they state.

Rethinking the city

Fouad and Heggy say that Alexandria has various options to collectively consider. Among them are hard solutions, for example, structures like dykes, and softer options like rehabilitating beaches and changing the use of coastal ecosystems. Infrastructure adaptation should also be considered and, in the most extreme cases, relocation of residents.

“If there’s no intervention, this growing vulnerability combined with the aging of infrastructure, excessive urban development and the intensification of climate pressures — such as rising sea levels, an increase in tidal waves and storms, and coastal erosion — will continue to undermine the structural integrity of buildings at an accelerated rate,” they predict.

Specialists like Fouad and Heggy think that Alexandria’s rehabilitation attempts are relying too heavily on hard protective measures, particularly with the installation of seawalls along large sections of its waterfront. Only in a few specific areas of the city, including some of those most affected by erosion, are other soft measures being adopted in parallel, such as beach regeneration.

Abdrabo thinks that Egyptian authorities are being primarily reactive in their response to the effects of climate change. He cites as an example the drain system that they have begun to install along the city’s promenade due to the increase in heavy winter rains of recent years. The rainfall sometimes paralyzes the city, but it does offer an additional source of water that can be reused.

For their part, Fouad and Heggy believe that authorities must give greater priority to mitigation techniques that are based less on cement and more on landscaping, including green streets. But they also emphasize that any strategy must include better coordination between municipal and governmental entities and the active participation of residents.

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