Abstract
Sea level rise, a consequence of climate change, is one of the biggest challenges that countries and regions with coastal lowlands will face in the medium term. This study proposes a methodology for assessing the vulnerability to sea-level rise on the Atlantic coast of mainland Portugal. Some scenarios of extreme sea levels for different return periods and extreme flooding events were estimated for 2050 and 2100, as proposed by the European Directive 2007/60/EC. A set of physical parameters are considered for the multi-attribute analysis based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process, in order to define a Physical Vulnerability Index fundamental to assess coastal vulnerability. For each sea-level rise scenario, coastal vulnerability maps, with a spatial resolution of 20 m, are produced at a national scale to identify areas more vulnerable to sea-level rise, which are key elements for triggering adaptation plans for such vulnerable regions. For 2050 and 2100, it is estimated that there will be 903 and 1146 km2 of vulnerable areas, respectively; the Lisbon district being identified as the most vulnerable in both scenarios. Results are available as a Web Map Service for the Portuguese public entities, and through a web map viewer for the public and communities in general.
Highlights
Sea-level rise (SLR) resulting from climate change is a phenomenon that cannot be prevented.According to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) [1], it “will continue to rise well beyond 2100
Increasing global warming amplifies the exposure of small islands, low-lying coastal areas and deltas to the risks associated with sea level rise for many human and ecological systems, including increased saltwater intrusion, flooding and damage to infrastructure”
Since Extreme Flood Hazard Index (EFHI) refers to the actual coastal topography given by a recent digital terrain model (DTM from 2008) without any future morphodynamics [33], the Physical Vulnerability Index (PVI) only assesses the actual coastal vulnerability due to the future threat of SLR and extreme flooding
Summary
Sea-level rise (SLR) resulting from climate change is a phenomenon that cannot be prevented. In this study, mostly physical factors are considered for the index, and for that reason, the authors called it the PVI instead of CVI This is an innovative study for Portugal because of the methodological approach for determining SLR coastal vulnerability and because it is the first study that meets the EU Directive guidelines, with a high spatial resolution, which rigorously analyzes and classifies the SLR vulnerability in the ACMP at a national scale. The manuscript is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the study area and the dataset, Section 3 describes the methodology, Section 4 presents the results, and in Section 5, some conclusions are drawn
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