Coastal inundation in the north-eastern mediterranean coastal zone due to storm surge events

Abstract

Low-elevation coastal areas and their populations are at risk during and after the appearance of a storm surge event. Coastal flooding as a result of storm surge events is investigated in this paper for a number of areas around the north-eastern (NE) Mediterranean coastal zone (Adriatic, Aegean and north Levantine seas). The sea level rise (SLR) due to storm surge events is examined for the period 2000-2004. Wind data, atmospheric pressure and wave data for this period as well as in situ sea elevation measurements (from stations around the Mediterranean coasts) were used. Potential inundation zones were then identified using a 90-m horizontal resolution digital elevation model (DEM). At these zones, the sea surface elevations were calculated for the study period, using the collected data and a 2D storm surge simulation model (1/10 o ×1/10 o ) output, examining the sea level alteration in specific coastal areas, where in situ measurements are absent and are characterised as "risky" in inundation areas, due to their topography. In order to determine the level of storm track implication on major SLR incidents, the trajectories of the respective storm events were computed. The aim of this paper is to investigate the major storm surge events that appeared during the study period, identify the major "risky" costal regions along the north-eastern Mediterranean coast and determine their hazard level due to inundation caused by storm surge phenomena. The combination of the risk level determination of an area and the calculation of sea level alteration is an important tool in terms of predicting and protecting the coastal area from extreme meteorological incidents.

Climatic Study of the Marine Surface Wind Field over the Greek Seas with the Use of a High Resolution RCM Focusing on Extreme Winds

“…According to Makris et al [36], in these two regions, the Storm Surge Index (SSI) presents the highest values underling the vulnerability of these coastal areas. Moreover, Krestenitis et al [37] showed that the southeastern Aegean Sea presents an increase of the frequency of Sea Level High (SLH) during the recent years.…”

Modeling Flood Inundation Induced by River Flow and Storm Surges over a River Basin

“…Numerous numerical models have been developed and applied to simulate hurricane/typhoon-induced storm surges [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Sheng et al [15] reported that the accuracy of a storm surge simulation depends on many factors including the input data (e.g., bathymetry, topography, and wind/pressure fields), the representation of important processes (e.g., flooding and drying and bottom friction), the model grid resolution, and the open boundary conditions.…”

“…Xie et al [20] used a three-dimensional storm surge model to study the effect of the asymmetric structure of a hurricane wind field on the storm surge and the inundation extent. Krestenitis et al [13] used a two-dimensional hydrodynamic model to investigate coastal flooding resulting from storm surge events around the northeastern Mediterranean coastal zone. Lewis et al [21] developed a computationally inexpensive inundation model from freely available data sources to estimate the flood risk from storm surges in the northern Bay of Bengal.…”

Assessment of island beach erosion due to sea level rise: the case of the Aegean archipelago (Eastern Mediterranean)

“…For example, a recent study has suggested substantial changes in the return periods of ESLs for the E. Mediterranean for the end of the 21st century, with the current 1000-year event projected to occur every five years (Vousdoukas et al, 2017). Regarding the storm surges in the Aegean archipelago, these are relatively small (heights of up to about 0.5 m, Krestenitis et al, 2011) and projected to show (generally) small height increases until 2050 as well as changes in their temporal distribution (e.g., Marcos et al, 2011;Androulidakis et al, 2015;Vousdoukas et al, 2016a).…”