Applying two methodologies of an integrated coastal vulnerability index (ICVI) to future sea-level rise

Abstract

Climate change is an issue of concern and is expected to cause various adverse impacts on human societies in the near and long-term future. Sea-level rise, which is caused by global warming and melting continental ice sheets, in combination with the rising global population and evolution of human activities in coastal areas, tends to make coastal societies more prone to coastal hazards. The Gulf of Corinth in Greece with its diverse coastal landforms and tectonic complexity makes the region unique when considering an assessment of coastal vulnerability. In this study we apply an Integrated Coastal Vulnerability Index (ICVI) to a potential sea-level rise for the southern coastline of the Gulf of Corinth (Greece) consisting of physical and socio-economic parameters. Among multiple different methodologies that have been developed over the recent years, we decided to apply two of the mathematical approaches we believe are best suited for the protection of human activities in our study area. The first one, ICVI_1, is based on the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) by Thieler and Hammar-Klose (1999) with variables of equal relative importance, whereas the second one, ICVI_2, uses the Analytic Hierarchic Process (AHP) with the assignment of relative weight values to each parameter. The parameters were identified and ranked into a vulnerability index with a scale from 1 to 5. The results reveal that both approaches depict more or less the same coastal sections of high or very high vulnerability, but differ in the distribution of extreme values. ICVI_1 shows that 18.3% of the total coastline features very high vulnerability (score 5), while ICVI_2 shows 9.1%. The coastal sections with the highest scores of vulnerability are mostly represented in the eastern part of the studied coastline with low-lying regions of gentle slope and concentrated human activity.