By century's end, hundreds of millions of people will be retreating from the world's shores. Nuclear reactors will be decommissioned. The greatest cities in human history, abandoned. This is the story of our rising seas.

In a shocking cover story for Rolling Stone, Jeff Goodell predicted that within the lifetime of many of the readers of this book, Miami as we know it today will vanish.

This is not a reckless hypothesis. From island nations to the world's major metropolises, our coasts will drown in the rising waters, which will soon inundate and transform our landscapes. There is no simple way to protect ourselves from this fate--no barriers to erect, no walls to build--to prevent the iconic cities of our time from becoming modern Atlantises.

THE WATER WILL COME is the definitive account of why this will happen, how this will happen, and what it will mean. Grounded in fact, science, and on-the-ground reporting, it will tell the story of the coming great drowning, in the vein of environmental classics in this mode, like The World Without Us.