Nepal, Oct. 31 -- New research published Tuesday finds that previous projections for the number of people who will be impacted by sea level rise have been too optimistic.

A new projection method which uses artificial intelligence has found that as many as 150 million people are currently living on land that will be below the high-tide line by 2050, three times more than previously thought. And much of the impacts of sea level rise will be felt by a handful of coastal Asian countries.

The paper, which was published in the journal Nature Communications, estimates that 70 percent of the total number of people worldwide currently living on vulnerable land are in eight Asian countries: China, Bangladesh, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, ...