A Mediterranean coastal database for assessing the impacts of sea-level rise and associated hazards

Abstract

We have developed a new coastal database for the Mediterranean basin that is intended for coastal impact and adaptation assessment to sea-level rise and associated hazards on a regional scale. The data structure of the database relies on a linear representation of the coast with associated spatial assessment units. Using information on coastal morphology, human settlements and administrative boundaries, we have divided the Mediterranean coast into 13 900 coastal assessment units. To these units we have spatially attributed 160 parameters on the characteristics of the natural and socio-economic subsystems, such as extreme sea levels, vertical land movement and number of people exposed to sea-level rise and extreme sea levels. The database contains information on current conditions and on plausible future changes that are essential drivers for future impacts, such as sea-level rise rates and socio-economic development. Besides its intended use in risk and impact assessment, we anticipate that the Mediterranean Coastal Database (MCD) constitutes a useful source of information for a wide range of coastal applications.

Best Practices for Elevation-Based Assessments of Sea-Level Rise and Coastal Flooding Exposure

“…Despite ample evidence of the significant limitations of global DEMs, especially SRTM, for coastal assessments, they have been used extensively for mapping and describing potential impacts of SLR and coastal flooding, often with assessment parameters (small water level increments and short planning horizons) that fall well within the error bounds of the underlying elevation data (Dasgupta et al, 2008(Dasgupta et al, , 2010Hanson et al, 2010;Curtis and Schneider, 2011;Blankespoor et al, 2014;Hardy and Nuse, 2016;Kopp et al, 2017;Runting et al, 2017;Brown et al, 2018a,b;Gebremichael et al, 2018;Haer et al, 2018;Jevrejeva et al, 2018;Lincke and Hinkel, 2018;Nicholls et al, 2018;Prahl et al, 2018;Rasmussen et al, 2018;Schuerch et al, 2018;Wolff et al, 2018). Some of these studies used a model or database in which the global DEM is embedded, such as the Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment (DIVA) modeling framework (Hinkel, 2005;Vafeidis et al, 2008), so the inherent vertical uncertainty is contained within model or database components.…”

“…For nearly four decades, elevation data, most often in the form of DEMs, have been used to identify low-lying coastal lands over broad areas to conduct assessments of the effects of rising sea levels (Schneider and Chen, 1980;Titus et al, 1991;Titus and Richman, 2001;Small and Nicholls, 2003;Ericson et al, 2006;Rowley et al, 2007;Dasgupta et al, 2008Dasgupta et al, , 2010Weiss et al, 2011;Haer et al, 2013;Blankespoor et al, 2014;Neumann et al, 2015;Hardy and Nuse, 2016;Kulp and Strauss, 2017;Small et al, 2018;Wolff et al, 2018). Over this period, the quality of DEMs available for use in assessments has improved, especially in terms of spatial resolution and vertical accuracy.…”

Robustness and uncertainties in global multivariate wind-wave climate projections

“…Coasts without available wave model outputs were not considered, which included sea-ice regions and enclosed seas. These results are considered representative of wind-wave conditions before interaction with the seafloor and depth-induced wave breaking in the nearshore occurs 55 .…”

The AlborEX dataset: sampling of sub-mesoscale features in the Alboran Sea

“…The western Mediterranean Sea is a particularly relevant region for multi-platform experiments, thanks to the wide range of processes taking place, which have been intensively studied since the work of Wüst (1961) on vertical circulation: for example, influence on climate (e.g. Giorgi, 2006;Giorgi and Lionello, 2008;Adloff et al, 2015;Guiot and Cramer, 2016;Rahmstorf, 1998) and sea-level change (e.g.…”

“…Giorgi, 2006;Giorgi and Lionello, 2008;Adloff et al, 2015;Guiot and Cramer, 2016;Rahmstorf, 1998) and sea-level change (e.g. Tsimplis and Rixen, 2002;Bonaduce et al, 2016;Wolff et al, 2018), thermohaline circulation (e.g. Bergamasco and Malanotte-Rizzoli, 2010;Millot, 1987Millot, , 1991Millot, , 1999Skliris, 2014;Robinson et al, 2001), water mass formation and convection process (e.g.…”