CanCoast 2.0: data and indices to describe the sensitivity of Canada's marine coasts to changing climate

Abstract

Baseline mapping of coastal characteristics and understanding of the dynamic response of coastal sensitivity to environmental changes provide a strong foundation for climate change adaptation in Canada's coastal regions. CanCoast is a collection of datasets that describe the physical characteristics of Canada's marine coasts. It includes datasets that are not expected to change through time (such as coastal materials and backshore slope), and some that are projected to change as climate changes (such as wave height and mean sea level). CanCoast includes: sea-level change (early and late 21st century); wave-heights including the effects of sea ice (early and late 21st century); ground ice content; coastal materials; tidal range; and backshore slope. These are mapped to a common high-resolution shoreline and used to calculate indices that show the generalised coastal sensitivity of Canada's marine coasts in early and late 21st century climates, and the spatially-variable change in sensitivity between the early and the late 21st century. Because of the scales of the input data, the generalised indices are best used to identify regions that differ in sensitivity to changing climate, rather than local properties or coastal infrastructure with specific characteristics that cannot be resolved in this national-scale approach.