A vast number of these properties are used for mosques, madrassas, graveyards and orphanages, and many others are vacant or have been encroached upon.

Companies including Amazon and Apple are spending big, driving up the price of live sports rights and encroaching further on the turf of legacy network rivals.

"As we encroach on planetary boundaries, the number of organisms an ecosystem can support is reduced," says Prof Townend.

High greenhouse gas emissions from human activity cause global temperatures to rise, melting ice sheets and glaciers, which in turn increases the volume of water in the ocean — encroaching on shorelines around the world.

Over the weekend a weather front encroaching from the Atlantic will bring some rain to northern and western areas of the UK.