Abstract
Abstract. Coastal regions become unprecedentedly vulnerable to coastal hazards that are associated with sea level rise. The purpose of this paper is therefore to simulate prospective urban exposure to changing sea levels. This article first applied the cellular-automaton-based SLEUTH model (Project Gigalopolis, 2016) to calibrate historical urban dynamics in Bay County, Florida (USA) – a region that is greatly threatened by rising sea levels. This paper estimated five urban growth parameters by multiple-calibration procedures that used different Monte Carlo iterations to account for modeling uncertainties. It then employed the calibrated model to predict three scenarios of urban growth up to 2080 – historical trend, urban sprawl, and compact development. We also assessed land use impacts of four policies: no regulations; flood mitigation plans based on the whole study region and on those areas that are prone to experience growth; and the protection of conservational lands. This study lastly overlaid projected urban areas in 2030 and 2080 with 500-year flooding maps that were developed under 0, 0.2, and 0.9 m sea level rise. The calibration results that a substantial number of built-up regions extend from established coastal settlements. The predictions suggest that total flooded area of new urbanized regions in 2080 would be more than 25 times that under the flood mitigation policy, if the urbanization progresses with few policy interventions. The joint model generates new knowledge in the domain between land use modeling and sea level rise. It contributes to coastal spatial planning by helping develop hazard mitigation schemes and can be employed in other international communities that face combined pressure of urban growth and climate change.
Highlights
Coastal areas are the most intensively exploited places where urban expansion largely alters natural landscape
Bay County and its adjacent areas (Washington and Walton counties) were used to prove our hypotheses based on two considerations: high exposure to coastal hazards and sea level rise (SLR) that are experienced in the majority of worldwide coastal zones and data availability for modeling
This work contributes to the literature by integrating urban growth dynamics, land use policies, and SLR-induced flooding
Summary
Coastal areas are the most intensively exploited places where urban expansion largely alters natural landscape. As land– sea interfaces, these regions are featured by various conflicts between anthropogenic pressures and natural sustainability. Such conflicts have become exacerbated in recent years. While coastal zones increasingly attract population and investments, their communities are more aware of the intensified frequency of natural incidents and possible associations with climate change. It is evident that climate change partly contributes to intensified hurricanes and floods (Hsu, 2014), rising sea level (IPCC, 2013), and other coastal hazards. Bay County has a long shoreline along the Gulf Coast (Fig. 1) It is representative in the context of climate change, since it faces unprecedented and accelerated threats from storm surges, hurricanes, and projected sea level variations. The Urban Growth Model mainly focuses on urban/non-urban dynamics and is a primary focus of this work
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