Abstract
Coastal areas are densely populated areas, and they have been experiencing increasing pressures as a consequence of population growth, but also because of climate change aggravation. For this reason, hazard, vulnerability, and risk indexes have been becoming more recurrent, especially to study and analyze low-lying coastal areas. This study presents an analysis on wave overtopping and coastal flooding, using an Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) multicriteria methodology, in Costa da Caparica (Portugal). The definition of the different criteria, as well as their respective weighting for the overall problem and index calculation, was carried out with the help of experts in the subject. By following this methodology, and by using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), hazard, vulnerability, and risk indexes were obtained. The most hazardous areas are located closest to the sea, where the elevation is the lowest, whereas the most vulnerable areas are in neighborhoods with specific socioeconomic characteristics (high urban and economic density). Overall, around 30% of the study area displays moderate to very high risk regarding the occurrence of overtopping and flooding events. The results of this study will be helpful in decision-making processes in matters of coastal zone management and monitoring.
Highlights
Risk, hazard, and vulnerability studies in coastal areas have been gaining importance due to the increasing pressure on these areas
Costa da Caparica was carried out by Ferreira [13], applying the principles of Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) through a multicriteria analysis developed by Saaty [64], while using Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
By applying the AHP principles through the Saaty [64] multicriteria analysis, while using the ArcGIS software, it was possible to classify the distinct areas of the study site, according to the different hazard and vulnerability classes
Summary
Hazard, and vulnerability studies in coastal areas have been gaining importance due to the increasing pressure on these areas. Coastal areas are densely populated, being subject to natural and, more importantly, anthropogenic pressures [1]. Such pressures have been intensified because of both population growth as well as the increase in greenhouse gas emissions, which lead to climate change aggravation [1,2]. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) [3] refers to climate change as a “change in the state of the climate that can be identified (e.g., using statistical tests) by changes in the mean and/or the variability of its properties, and that persists for an extended period, typically decades or longer.
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