Abstract
While land reclaimed from the sea meets the land demand for coastal development, it simultaneously causes socio-economic systems to be prone to coastal flooding induced by storm surges and sea-level rise. Current studies have seldom linked reclamation with coastal flood impact assessment, hindering the provision of accurate information to support coastal flood risk management and adaptation. This study, using Xiamen, China as a case study, incorporates the spatiotemporal dynamics of reclamation into a coastal flood impact model, in order to investigate the long-term influence of reclamation activities on coastal flood inundation and the consequent exposure of the population to coastal flooding. We find that rapid population growth, continual economic development and urbanization drive a substantial logarithmic increase in coastal reclamation. Historical and future expansions of seaward land reclamation are found to cause dramatic surges in the expected annual inundation (EAI) and the expected annual population (EAP) exposed to coastal flooding. In Xiamen, EAI is estimated to increase by 440.2% from 1947 to 2035, owing to continuing land reclamation. Consequently, the population living in the flooded area has also increased sharply: the EAP of total population is estimated to rise from 0.8% in 1947 to 4.7% in 2035, where reclamation contributes over 80% of this increase. Moreover, a future 10 cm sea-level rise in 2035 will lead to extra 5.73% and 8.15% increases in EAI and EAP, respectively, and is expected to cause massive permanent submersion in the new reclamation zone. Our findings emphasize an integration of hard structures and nature-based solutions for building resilient coasts.
Highlights
Rapid increases in coastal urbanization, global population and economic activity have resulted in a significant rise in the consumption of land over the past 30 years [1]
Our long-term analysis helps to reveal the spatiotemporal dynamics of coastal reclamation and its influences on coastal flood inundation and population exposure
This result corresponds with the studies of Neumann et al [31], Wang et al [55], Xu et al [45] and Zimmermann et al [56], who investigated the impact of sea-level rise on coastal flooding, and found that sea-level rise could lead to an increase in coastal flood frequency and, in addition, land, population, gross domestic product (GDP), buildings and infrastructure being exposed to inundation
Summary
Rapid increases in coastal urbanization, global population and economic activity have resulted in a significant rise in the consumption of land over the past 30 years [1]. Sea-level rise will raise extreme water levels in storm surges, leading to large increases in future overall flood frequency and intensity [8,9,10]. Ongoing rapid urbanization is likely to continue in most cities over the few decades [13], indicating that an overall increasing trend of exposure and vulnerability to coastal flooding can be expected in the future. It is urgent to investigate the influence of the dynamic characteristics of reclamation on coastal flooding, as well as its socio-economic impacts, in order to support the planning, implementation and optimization of measures that can create coastal flood-resilient cities
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