Potential Sea Level Rise Inundation in the Mediterranean: From Susceptibility Assessment to Risk Scenarios for Policy Action

Rizzo, Angela; Vandelli, Vittoria; Gauci, Christopher; Buhagiar, George; Micallef, A.; Soldati, Mauro

doi:10.3390/w14030416

Cited by 25 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…It is the belief of stakeholders that the disconnect from scientific data on SLR also extends to decision-makers, causing significant gaps in awareness and even major misconceptions. This output is in line with the work of Rizzo et al ( 2022 ) who found that in the Mediterranean there is a need for creating a bridge to allow policy-makers to understand and adopt the results of scientific data and risk assessments regarding SLR. Data are therefore important and useful for a wide range of local stakeholders and high-quality information is important for building credibility and for encouraging communities to act against SLR.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Adapting to sea level rise: participatory, solution-oriented policy tools in vulnerable Mediterranean areas

Loizidou¹,

Orthodoxou²,

Loizides³

et al. 2023

Environ Syst Decis

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The coasts of the Mediterranean basin are exposed to the ongoing effects of climate change and anthropogenic pressure. Low elevated coastal plains, river deltas, lagoons and reclamation areas are experiencing beach retreat, coastal erosion and marine flooding. This makes them particularly vulnerable to sea level rise (SLR), which is expected to increase up to 1 m by 2100 AD, according to the projections of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In this study, selected stakeholders from four Mediterranean coastal areas that are highly vulnerable to the impacts of SLR have been engaged through a structured participatory process for the development of solution-oriented, case-specific and site-specific Policy Tools to address SLR. The developed Policy Tools for the Venice Lagoon, the Metaponto reclamation area and the Basento river mouth, in Italy, the Ebro River Delta in Spain, and the coastal plain of Chalastra, near the Axios River Delta, in Greece, contain relevant, effective and implementable actions stemming from stakeholder interaction and consensus building. The interconnected stakeholder engagement steps employed in this study identified relevant issues that should be considered when defining SLR adaptation policies to bridge knowledge and perception gaps, facilitate knowledge exchange and foster social learning through structured science communication on SLR. This participatory stakeholder process can lay the foundations for more extensive participation in public processes through which the resulting Policy Tools can materialise into collectively accepted, concrete actions to help vulnerable areas adapt to the expected SLR and consequent coastal hazards by the end of this century.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Adapting to sea level rise: participatory, solution-oriented policy tools in vulnerable Mediterranean areas

Loizidou¹,

Orthodoxou²,

Loizides³

et al. 2023

Environ Syst Decis

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“…It requires human intervention to reduce GHG emissions under climate-policy socioeconomic reference scenarios [45]. However, the RCP8.5 is defined as a high pathway that leads to radiative forcing higher than 8.5 W•m −2 in 2100 [11] without a climate change policy [46].…”

Section: Cnrm-cm5 Noresm1-m Cm5a-mr Ec-earth Mpi-esm-lrmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Numerous papers affirmed that climate change would affect the Mediterranean countries [9][10][11][12], including Tunisia, more than other regions [13,14]. The Mediterranean region is considered a climate change hotspot [14] where its warming will occur 20% faster than the global average [13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Discharge of the Lakhmass Catchment (Northwest Tunisia)

Nsir

Jomaa

Yıldırım

et al. 2022

Water

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The Mediterranean region is increasingly recognized as a climate change hotspot but is highly underrepresented in hydrological climate change studies. This study aims to investigate the climate change effects on the hydrology of Lakhmass catchment in Tunisia. Lakhmass catchment is a part of the Medium Valley of Medjerda in northwestern Tunisia that drains an area of 126 km². First, the Hydrologiska Byråns Vattenbalansavdelning light (HBV-light) model was calibrated and validated successfully at a daily time step to simulate discharge during the 1981–1986 period. The Nash Sutcliffe Efficiency and Percent bias (NSE, PBIAS) were (0.80, +2.0%) and (0.53, −9.5%) for calibration (September 82–August 84) and validation (September 84–August 86) periods, respectively. Second, HBV-light model was considered as a predictive tool to simulate discharge in a baseline period (1981–2009) and future projections using data (precipitation and temperature) from thirteen combinations of General Circulation Models (GCMs) and Regional Climatic Models (RCMs). We used two trajectories of Representative Concentration Pathways, RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, suggested by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Each RCP is divided into three projection periods: near-term (2010–2039), mid-term (2040–2069) and long-term (2070–2099). For both scenarios, a decrease in precipitation and discharge will be expected with an increase in air temperature and a reduction in precipitation with almost 5% for every +1 °C of global warming. By long-term (2070–2099) projection period, results suggested an increase in temperature with about 2.7 °C and 4 °C, and a decrease in precipitation of approximately 7.5% and 15% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. This will likely result in a reduction of discharge of 12.5% and 36.6% under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5, respectively. This situation calls for early climate change adaptation measures under a participatory approach, including multiple stakeholders and water users.

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“…In particular, sea‐level rise due to global warming is expected to have a series of negative effects on the settlements close to the shoreline, as well as the deltas all over the world (Hereher, 2015). In particular, the Mediterranean coastal areas are highly exposed to negative coastal processes such as erosion, which, in turn, are strongly affected by increases in mean sea level due to climate change events (Rizzo et al, 2022). Under current conditions, many WHSs are at risk of coastline erosion associated with storm surges, wave action, currents and high tides (Franco, 1996; Porotov, 2007; Reimann et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking the effects of the long‐term changes on the coastal archaeological sites of the Mediterranean using remote sensing data: The case study from the northern shoreline of Nile Delta of Egypt

Elfadaly

Abutaleb

Naguib

et al. 2023

Archaeological Prospection

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Climate change effects along with anthropogenic activities present the main factors that threaten the existence of heritage sites across the north Nile Delta of Egypt close to the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. Observing the changes in the landscape close to the archaeological sites is an important issue for decision‐makers in terms of reducing the negative impact of natural events and human activities. The coastal heritage sites are becoming strongly threatened by the rising sea level phenomena that will happen due to global warming. Focusing on the distribution of the archaeological sites, this study aims to detect the areas at risk of shoreline erosion or accretion in the northern shoreline of the Nile Delta. In this study, the changes in the northern shoreline of the Nile Delta were observed and calculated during the last hundred years based on the integration between the old topographic maps from surveys in 1900, 1925 and 1945, optical satellite images captured by Landsat in 1972, 1986 and 2000; Sentinel2 2021; and the Radar SRTM data. The results of this study showed that the changes were enormous with a great shoreline erosion process over the last 121 years recorded along the shoreline in the periods between 1900–1925, 1925–1945, 1945–1972, 1972–1986, 1986–2000 and 2000–2021. The areas eroded were about 5.3, 4.7, 5.6, 8.9, 2.5 and 5.4 km2, respectively. Such negative movements caused the loss of two heritage sites, and the expected changes will lead to the loss of additional heritage sites in the next 500 years. Furthermore, a model was suggested for protecting the coastal heritage sites threatened by the risk of submergence. This study can help the decision‐makers to detect the coastal archaeological sites at risk and create innovative solutions for protecting these irreplaceable heritage sites.

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Potential Sea Level Rise Inundation in the Mediterranean: From Susceptibility Assessment to Risk Scenarios for Policy Action

Cited by 25 publications

References 67 publications

Adapting to sea level rise: participatory, solution-oriented policy tools in vulnerable Mediterranean areas

Adapting to sea level rise: participatory, solution-oriented policy tools in vulnerable Mediterranean areas

Assessment of Climate Change Impact on Discharge of the Lakhmass Catchment (Northwest Tunisia)

Tracking the effects of the long‐term changes on the coastal archaeological sites of the Mediterranean using remote sensing data: The case study from the northern shoreline of Nile Delta of Egypt

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