Preliminary Coastal Vulnerability Assessment for Guangdong Province, Southeast China

Abstract

Li, W.; Xiang, W.; Wang, H.; Dong, J.; Xu, H.; Zhang, J.; Zuo, C.; Liu, Q.; Lv, J., and Xie, Q., 2023. Preliminary coastal vulnerability assessment for Guangdong province, Southeast China. Journal of Coastal Research, 39(3), 509–518. Charlotte (North Carolina), ISSN 0749-0208. Accelerating sea level rise and intensifying extreme marine and weather events pose unprecedented challenges to coastal areas in the context of climate change. As a hotspot of marine disasters, Guangdong has been suffering from severe marine disasters including storms, flooding, coastal erosion, and saltwater intrusion in the last decades. It is essential for coastal management authorities to distinguish vulnerable areas and optimize coastal planning. To help identify the coastal vulnerability patterns of the Guangdong coast, the coastal vulnerability index was used based on integrated physical and socio-economic indicators including relative sea level rise, mean tide range, significant wave height, coastal slope, geomorphology, population, land use, and coastal gross domestic product. Each indicator was assigned five vulnerability classifications from very low to very high (1–5). Results show that about 36.7% of the coastline in Guangdong is highly vulnerable, of which 18.3% of the coastline is very highly vulnerable. About 63.3% of the coastline is in moderate to low vulnerability. In particular, the coastal areas in east of Zhanjiang, Maoming, Yangjiang, Zhuhai, Zhongshan, Guangzhou, west of Shenzhen, east Shanwei, and Chaozhou are more vulnerable to sea level rise, which calls for urgent planning and protective measures.