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Sea advancement, accelerated erosion, and structural collapses transform urban routine in Alexandria, pressuring the government to act with emergency works and population resettlement in the face of increasing risks in one of the most vulnerable cities in the Mediterranean.
Alexandria, in Egypt, has begun to face an increasingly visible combination of coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion, and soil instability, a phenomenon that is already evident in the rise of building collapses and pressures the public authorities to accelerate containment works, removals, and resettlements in a city of nearly 5.8 million inhabitants.
Sea advancement and urban impact in Alexandria
The problem has ceased to be treated merely as a climate projection and has gained concrete expression in neighborhoods facing the Mediterranean, where residents report narrower beaches, the sea advancing towards buildings, and the more frequent emergence of cracks, tilts, and deformations that alter the routine of families forced to abandon apartments deemed unsafe.
According to a scientific survey published in February 2025 in the journal Earth’s Future, building collapses in Alexandria have sharply increased in recent decades, while the coastline has receded, on average, about 3.5 meters per year over the last 20 years, in a scenario associated with rising sea levels, land subsidence, and erosion.
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Researchers also identified a coastal area of high vulnerability with over 7,000 buildings at risk, a number that helps to quantify the urban dimension of the problem in a densely populated coastal strip, where the pressure on housing and infrastructure adds to a continuous and already measurable environmental process.
Saline infiltration and structural risk of buildings
More than the impact of waves on the surface, degradation advances underground.
Seawater penetrates sandy soils, raises salinity in the layers beneath the buildings, and accelerates the corrosion of materials and the weakening of foundations, reducing the stability of old buildings and shortening the interval between signs of deterioration and more serious structural failures.
This change helps to explain why properties that stood for decades have begun to show cracks, tilts, and recurring damage in a shorter period.
Instead of isolated episodes of flooding, what is observed in Alexandria is a persistent alteration of the physical conditions that sustain an important part of the urban fabric.
Government Measures Against Coastal Erosion
The response of the Egyptian government attempts to contain the advance of the problem on several fronts.
Nine concrete maritime barriers have been installed in vulnerable sections of the coast to reduce the impact of waves, while trucks have been used to replenish eroded beaches with sand, in an attempt to restore part of the natural protection between the sea and built-up areas.
However, the measures are not limited to coastal engineering.
Egyptian authorities have identified around 7,500 buildings for demolition and announced the construction of 55,000 new housing units, a strategy aimed at relocating residents from unsafe properties and reducing risk in areas where collapses have become more frequent.
In July 2025, Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly stated that there are constant reports of partial or total collapses of buildings that already had demolition orders, a recognition that highlights the difficulty of acting with the same speed as a degradation process that advances in different parts of the city.
Population Growth and Housing Pressure
The pressure is increasing in a context of population expansion and a tense real estate market.
Data cited by Reuters based on the official statistics agency CAPMAS indicates that the population of Alexandria has nearly doubled in 25 years, reaching about 5.8 million residents, a movement that has increased the demand for housing and made it difficult to relocate families from more vulnerable areas.
Even in monitored areas, property prices remain high, which helps keep part of the population in vulnerable buildings or in coastal neighborhoods subject to accelerated deterioration.
The crisis, therefore, involves not only works against the sea but also housing availability, urban density, and the state’s capacity to relocate residents without increasing social pressure.
Historical City at Climatic Risk in the Mediterranean
The case of Alexandria draws attention for bringing together, in the same space, historical heritage, population density, and climatic exposure.
The study published in 2025 indicates that the urban coastal strip of the city, approximately 70 kilometers long, is the most vulnerable in the entire Mediterranean basin, which amplifies the international weight of the alert issued by researchers.
This vulnerability is not limited to a distant future threat.
It is already evident in the landscape, infrastructure, and government decisions, with coastal defense works coexisting with deteriorated facades, closed properties, and successive emergency interventions in neighborhoods where structural wear has become part of daily life.
Reports gathered by Reuters show that residents notice the problem in renovations that deteriorate quickly, cracks that reappear shortly after repairs, and a sense of continuous transformation in the streets near the sea.
In some cases, apartments have become uninhabitable after the structure began to tilt, forcing hurried exits and material losses for families.
The accelerated deterioration reinforces experts’ assessments that Alexandria has become one of the most concrete examples of how rising sea levels can directly affect already established coastal cities.
Instead of an impact limited to extreme events, what is observed is a gradual erosion of the physical foundation that supports entire neighborhoods.
In an urban center historically associated with trade, maritime circulation, and intense coastal occupation, the climate threat is now measured not only by beach loss but by the compromise of foundations, the need for preventive demolitions, and the difficulty of adapting millions of residents to a coastal environment that is more unstable than in the recent past.
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