Coastal Risk Assessment Framework: Comparison of modelled fluvial and marine inundation impacts, Bocca di Magra, Ligurian coast, Italy

Abstract

The identification and classification of critical coastal areas is becoming more and more important from a coastal management point of view, especially considering future climate change. The standardized assessment of multiple hazards and their potential impacts is crucial, in terms of risk management, for those coastal areas where both marine and fluvial hazards can occur.Nevertheless, in Bocca di Magra (Liguria Region, Italy), where both coastal and fluvial flooding can occur, up until now the potential impacts from marine flooding have not been thought to be of importance; only the impact of fluvial flooding has been systematically analysed. Now, however, the Liguria Regional stakeholders have become interested in understanding the potential impact of marine inundations compared to fluvial inundations, applying the CRAF (Coastal Risk Assessment Framework) methodology developed inside the RISC-KIT project.The hazard modelling of coastal and fluvial inundations was used, together with exposure data, to evaluate the direct and systemic impacts generated by both flooding mechanisms separately. An End-User-driven Multi-Criteria Analysis was implemented to compare coastal and fluvial impacts on the same area.For an event with a 1 in 200 year return period, the CRAF predicts that fluvial inundation generates higher impacts, in comparison to the marine one. Even though the impacts in the coastal area are less, the impacted exposed elements are different from those impacted by fluvial inundation and none of them can be excluded from the analysis.This work highlights the need for regional managers to develop combined coastal-fluvial flooding assessments; such actions should be seen as a priority for flood disaster risk management in locations affected by both marine flooding and riverine flash flooding.