ATAFONA, Brazil—
Sônia Ferreira
struggles to remember what this deserted fishing community near Rio de Janeiro looked like when she moved here some 50 years ago—mostly because a good chunk of it is now at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
The coastline is receding as much as 18 feet a year at the mouth of the Paraíba do Sul river in Atafona, home to 7,000 people, satellite images show. Between 1984 and 2016, some 550 feet have disappeared. Climate change has increased sea levels, scientists say, and most of the river’s water has been diverted to nearby cities, farms and factories, thwarting its ability to push back the ever-higher waves that sweep away buildings, livelihoods and memories.
“You watch it happen in slow motion,” said Ms. Ferreira, 78, surveying the rubble at the water’s edge that had been the home where she raised three children. “You don’t know when exactly your house will fall down but you know it will.”
Atafona is an extreme example of the challenge that lies ahead in a country with some 4,600 miles of coastline, one of the world’s longest. Environmental researchers say scores of other beachside communities face similar fates in Brazil, among the top 10 countries that will be most affected by rising sea levels, according to Climate Central, a research organization on climate science.
Atafona’s problems have been compounded by manufacturing and agricultural development upstream.
In tourist hot spots such as João Pessoa on the northeastern coast, hotel owners are already begging the government to build artificial reefs to protect their beaches from higher tides.
In São Paulo state, rising sea levels combined with intense rains led to severe floods in February that killed more than 60 people and left thousands homeless, said
Celia Gouveia Souza,
a geologist and oceanographer at the government-backed Institute of Environmental Research.
“There was a huge amount of water trying to drain down the rivers into the sea just as the sea was rising to its highest point,” she said.
In Atafona, the 2-mile-long…
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