Understanding International Cooperation Potential in Coastal Multiple Hazards Governance Through Risk Similarity

Household perceptions of coastal hazards and climate change in the Central Philippines

Spatial Assessment of Coastal Erosion Vulnerability: Natural and Anthropogenic Factors in Chattogram, Bangladesh

Coastal communities are becoming increasingly aware of the risks to local infrastructure from more frequent and severe flooding, more extreme storm surges, and sea-level rise. As local governments are responsible for the lion’s share of land use decision-making and infrastructure development in coastal communities in the United States, local governments in the coastal zone will play a key role in adapting to the changing climate. Local decision-makers are facing hard questions about whether to build new infrastructure, adapt existing infrastructure to new standards, continue maintaining existing infrastructure as is, or abandon infrastructure altogether. Monroe County, Florida, for example, has begun to factor sea-level rise considerations into decisions related to road improvement projects, creating specific design standards addressing elevation and working to weigh the benefits and costs of different adaptation options such as elevating roads. Local governments are making these decisions in the context of increasingly unreliable and aging road systems, all while meeting current stormwater criteria which may require drainage improvements. Local decision-makers also are recognizing that crucial infrastructure decisions that directly affect their adaptation success are sometimes out of their control. In the case of the City of Tybee Island, Georgia, for example, tidal flooding restricts access to U.S. Highway 80 on an ever-increasing basis—yet the highway, the only road leading to the island, is not under the city’s jurisdiction but that of the Georgia Department of Transportation. To further complicate matters for local governments, both taking action and failing to act could result in either tort or “takings” liability in cases where a poorly maintained road results in harm to life or loss of property value from diminished access. Using the duty of state and local governments to maintain roads as a focus, this Article explores the complexity of adaptation at the local level as the impacts of climate change become more pronounced. Specifically, this Article presents an analysis of coastal communities in four South Atlantic states—Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina—that are currently facing questions about how to protect property and infrastructure as sea levels rise and flooding increases. This Article distills the findings of an interdisciplinary research project funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (“NOAA”), Florida Sea Grant, Georgia Sea Grant, South Carolina Sea Grant Consortium, and North Carolina Sea Grant. It also consists of a regional analysis comparing how tort and local government law can both further and hinder climate change resilience planning and climate adaptation efforts across these four states. Given that the federal government has offered little in terms of legislation, policy, or funding to direct or support climate adaptation activities, local efforts—and the litigation that inevitably results—are on the forefront of establishing the framework for defining adaptation policy more broadly and influencing the contours of tort and land use law. This Article, therefore, fills an important research gap in existing climate change literature, as it discusses how increased flooding at the local level is putting pressure on traditional conceptions of government duties, immunities, and authorities. This Article also uses roads as a case study to explore how sea-level rise is altering planning, maintenance, and funding for public infrastructure. This discussion focuses on local duties and responsibilities to build, rebuild, modify, or maintain existing roads for two primary reasons: (1) it is a widely shared function among jurisdictions and is the most obvious and visible type of infrastructure to the public, and (2) roads and highways, which are crucial to trade, defense, and nation-building, have long been under the purview of government regulation and funding in the United States. Recently, roads have also become a focal point in local government efforts to address rising sea levels and increased flooding. While sea-level rise may seem like a distant threat, many of its effects are being felt now, as low-lying coastal areas such as Norfolk, Virginia; Brunswick, Georgia; and Monroe County, Florida are experiencing increased nuisance or “sunny day” flooding occurring during seasonal or average high tides. Such flooding typically affects roads, temporarily closing them and increasing maintenance and repair costs. Residents who rely on these roads, often find themselves cut off from their homes, businesses, workplaces, schools, and local hospitals. In this way, sea-level rise and the flooding associated with it have become increasingly familiar and imminent, making roads the “climate change canary in the coal mine” for local governments. Part I of this Article briefly discusses recent sea-level rise issues and coastal science most relevant to the South Atlantic states—North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Part II analyzes and compares each state’s road ownership and maintenance duties, first by addressing the threshold question of ownership and jurisdiction, and then by explaining the multi-step analysis that governments must take to evaluate their duties to maintain roads in order to avoid liability. Part II also outlines the wide differences among the four states in our study area and observes a common thread, namely, that in almost each instance, local governments are faced with conflicting pressures that are likely to reward inaction over action and favor short-term political compromises over strategic investments in adaptation. This Part then details how counties and municipalities can discontinue their duties to maintain roads through the process of abandonment and how abandonment can lead to takings liability. Part III offers three proposals for encouraging coordinated adaptation action and protecting local governments that take action to address climate impacts: (1) redefining the scope of the duties that define reasonable conduct for governments in making decisions about public infrastructure in an era of rising sea levels; (2) defining the scope of sovereign immunity protections in a way that encourages innovative and creative decision-making in an era of climate uncertainty; and (3) calling for consistent adaptation duties and authorities at the state level as a crucial first step in mending the regulatory patchwork that currently exists at the state, county, and city levels in our four-state study area. Part IV concludes with a summary of observations and recommended next steps.

The assessment of risk posed by climate change in coastal cities encompasses multiple climate-related hazards. Sea-level rise, coastal flooding and coastal erosion are important hazards, but they are not the only ones. The varying availability and quality of data across cities hinders the ability to conduct holistic and standardized multi-hazard assessments. Indeed, there are far fewer studies on multiple hazards than on single hazards. Also, the comparability of existing methodologies becomes challenging, making it difficult to establish a cohesive understanding of the overall vulnerability and resilience of coastal cities. The use of indicators allows for a standardized and systematic evaluation of baseline hazards across different cities. The methodology developed in this work establishes a framework to assess a wide variety of climate-related hazards across diverse coastal cities, including sea-level rise, coastal flooding, coastal erosion, heavy rainfall, land flooding, droughts, extreme temperatures, heatwaves, cold spells, strong winds and landslides. Indicators are produced and results are compared and mapped for ten European coastal cities. The indicators are meticulously designed to be applicable across different geographical contexts in Europe. In this manner, the proposed approach allows interventions to be prioritized based on the severity and urgency of the specific risks faced by each city.

<p>Coastal areas are socially, economically, and environmentally intensive zones. Their risk to various natural coastal hazards like coastal flooding, erosion, and storm surges has increased due to climate-induced changes in their forcing agents or hazard drivers (e.g. sea-level rise). The increased exposure (e.g. dense population living near the coast) and vulnerability (e.g. insufficient adaptation) to these hazards in the coastal areas have complicated the adaptation challenges.</p><p>Thus, monitoring coastal hazards is essential to inform suitable adaptation to increase the climate resilience of the coastal areas. In monitoring coastal climate hazards to develop coastal climate resilience, both the forcing agents and the coastal responses should be observed.</p><p>As coastal monitoring is often expensive and challenging, creating a database through a systematic analysis of low-cost sensing technologies, like UAV photogrammetry for monitoring the hazards and their drivers would be beneficial to the stakeholders. Real-time information from these low-cost sensors in complement to the existing institutional sensors will facilitate better adaptation policies including the development of early warning support for building coastal resilience. In addition, it would also provide a valuable dataset for validating coastal numerical models and providing insights into the relationship between these hazards and forcing agents. Additionally, such low-cost sensors would also create opportunities for engaging citizens in the data collection process, for efficient data collection, and increasing scientific literacy amongst the general public. For instance, in the Sensing Storm Surge Project (SSSP), citizen science was used to collect technical data to characterise estuarine storm surges, generating data useable in peer-reviewed Oceanography journals. Coastal areas show complex morphological changes in response to the forcing agents over a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. Thus, monitoring the hazards with a sufficient temporal and spatial resolution is imperative to distinguish the changes in these hazards/drivers due to climate change from natural variability. This will not only help address the response strategies to these hazards but also adjust these response strategies according to the changing vulnerability of a particular region.</p><p>The database of the low-lost sensors thus created is in no way exhaustive since those have been retrieved through a certain combination of keywords in databases like Sciencedirect, Web of Science, and Scopus, nonetheless it is useful as these are the latest low-cost sensors available to monitor the major coastal hazards in the vulnerable coastal regions.</p>

The South Atlantic Coastal Study (SACS) was completed by the US Army Corps of Engineers to quantify storm surge and wave hazards allowing for the expansion of the Coastal Hazards System (CHS) to the South Atlantic Division (SAD) domain. The goal of the CHS-SACS was to quantify coastal storm hazards for present conditions and future sea level rise (SLR) scenarios to aid in reducing flooding risk and increasing resiliency in coastal environments. CHS-SACS was completed for three regions within the SAD domain, and this report focuses on the Coastal Hazards System–Puerto Rico and US Virgin Islands (CHS-PR). This study applied the CHS Probabilistic Coastal Hazard Analysis (PCHA) framework for quantifying tropical cyclone (TC) responses, leveraging new atmospheric and hydrodynamic numerical model simulations of synthetic TCs developed explicitly for the CHS-PR region. This report focuses on documenting the PCHA conducted for CHS-PR, including the characterization of storm climate, storm sampling, storm recurrence rate estimation, marginal distributions, correlation and dependence structure of TC atmospheric-forcing parameters, development of augmented storm suites, and assignment of discrete storm weights to the synthetic TCs. As part of CHS-PR, coastal hazards were estimated for annual exceedance frequencies over the range of 10 yr⁻¹ to 10⁻⁴ yr⁻¹.

Despite mitigation efforts, anthropogenic emissions are projected to cause a global mean sea level rise of approximately 0.44 m and sustained sea levels over human timescales (e.g., centuries). Even without glacial melting, sea level remains elevated for centuries due to the substantial thermal inertia of the ocean interior. However, mechanisms governing persistent sea level rise remain inadequately understood. Here, using a fully coupled climate model, we demonstrate that a distinct sea surface temperature pattern drives enhanced and prolonged sea level rise. This surface warming pattern enhances the absorption of shortwave radiation through climate feedbacks, such as low cloud and sea ice-albedo feedbacks, thereby sustaining ocean heat uptake, thermal expansion, and continued sea level rise. Atmosphere-only simulations confirm that the sea surface temperature pattern alone explains the increased shortwave radiation through the positive feedbacks. These findings underscore the importance of accurately representing surface warming patterns and associated cloud responses in future sea level rise projections.

Since the principle that the capacity for innovation is a driving force in the growth of firms or other productive systems has been acknowledged, public policies hold to the view that geographical proximity plays a part in the process of the circulation of technology and knowledge, by fostering the kind of face to face relationships needed to establish and maintain a common pool of knowledge. The aim of this article is to question the relevance of these ideas, and enquiring as to whether geographical proximity is really needed for the diffusion and exchange of knowledge. A body of literature (local systems of production and externalities) considers permanent geographical proximity as a necessary condition for the diffusion of knowledge (I) whereas the articles dealing with transmission channels for externalities, show that geographical proximity only influences the innovative performance of firms if there is effective interaction between the agents (II). We show that organisation is the first modality in the transmission of knowledge, and that geographical proximity can be temporary, particularly in the initial phases of the R&D processes. The smaller firms are then more acutely aware to fulfil the need of de geographical proximity (III). This pattern, applied to plant biotechnology (IV), reveals that SME’s related to the AFI and to agriculture are part of a less diversified and more local innovation network than pharmaceutical SME’s and are more involved in frequent and repeated contacts with the clients and the suppliers.

This paper addresses duties under Te Tiriti o Waitangi/the Treaty of Waitangi (the Treaty) for protection of particular Māori interests in the face of coastal hazards associated with sea-level rise. Under Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the Crown has a duty to actively protect Māori lands, estates, forests, fisheries and other taonga, and must enable Māori to protect these taonga. It is necessary to assess what Treaty duties may exist in relation to decisions to adopt measures to adapt in an attempt to prevent the risks of damage eventuating from coastal hazards associated with sea-level rise. Much of the climate adaptation measures that would be necessary to actively protect Māori coastal interests fall within local government authorities' jurisdictions; they are thus guided by the procedures and standards under the Local Government Act (LGA) and Resource Management Act (RMA), as well as by district and regional plans and related documents. Local government authorities are not currently directly accountable for Treaty duties when acting pursuant to these Acts; these relevant obligations are still held by the Crown, or central government. But the actions of local government, on delegated authority from the Crown, can give rise to these authorities either upholding the central government Treaty obligations or creating new, modern-day breaches of the Treaty (that the central government would have to answer for). This paper is interested in what might be necessary in order to uphold the Crown’s Treaty obligations in the area of adaptation to the coastal hazards associated with sea-level rise. The paper forms part of a New Zealand Deep South National Science Challenge project on what to do about housing that will be adversely affected by such coastal hazards. Because of the nature of Treaty interests, it is hard to limit the scope of this paper to housing only. However, housing and marae are the key focus, even while some comments may also be made on some other coastal interests protected under the Treaty. Because of the multi-layered jurisdictional approach to climate adaptation measures in law and practice in Aotearoa, such an enquiry needs to address central government rules and initiatives as well as local government actions.

Development along the coasts of Oregon and Washington is threatened by a variety of natural hazards, including coastal erosion, landslides, earthquakes, and tsunamis. Property losses have increased significantly in recent years due to past land-use and management practices and an intensification of the physical processes that drive coastal change. This field trip will visit a number of sites that document or illustrate the processes that shape Pacific Northwest coastal geomorphology and create hazards, including potentially catastrophic tsunamis generated by the Cascadia subduction zone. New research documenting ocean processes (including the role of changing wave climates, storm surges, El Nino's, and sea-level rise), tsunamis, and the effects of coastal subduction caused by great earthquakes will be covered. Also examined is the human response, which includes constructing coastal engineering structures, the establishment of coastal “erosion” hazard zones, and various mitigation efforts that are being implemented to prepare for future tsunamis. The field trip concludes on the southern Washington coast at Cape Disappointment State Park adjacent to the Columbia River, where construction of the Columbia River jetties, river flow regulation, and dredging and disposal activities have affected the sediment budget of the Columbia River littoral cell, resulting in changing sediment conditions and management practices for this cell.

Climate change poses great risks to archaeological heritage, especially in coastal regions. Preparing to mitigate these challenges requires detailed and accurate assessments of how coastal heritage sites will be impacted by sea level rise (SLR) and storm surge, driven by increasingly severe storms in a warmer climate. However, inconsistency between modeled impacts of coastal erosion on archaeological sites and observed effects has thus far hindered our ability to accurately assess the vulnerability of sites. Modeling of coastal impacts has largely focused on medium-to-long term SLR, while observations of damage to sites have almost exclusively focused on the results of individual storm events. There is therefore a great need for desk-based modeling of the potential impacts of individual storm events to equip cultural heritage managers with the information they need to plan for and mitigate the impacts of storm surge in various future sea level scenarios. Here, we apply the Sea, Lake, and Overland Surges from Hurricanes (SLOSH) model to estimate the risks that storm surge events pose to archaeological sites along the coast of the US State of Georgia in four different SLR scenarios. Our results, shared with cultural heritage managers in the Georgia Historic Preservation Division to facilitate prioritization, documentation, and mitigation efforts, demonstrate that over 4200 archaeological sites in Georgia alone are at risk of inundation and erosion from hurricanes, more than ten times the number of sites that were previously estimated to be at risk by 2100 accounting for SLR alone. We hope that this work encourages necessary action toward conserving coastal physical cultural heritage in Georgia and beyond.

Climate change is one of the major threatens that coastal areas facing, and these coastal areas already stressed by large population. Past 4 decades tremendous tropical cyclones and associated flood are dismantled the coastline and resulted inundation and displacement of the coastal landforms. In the present study, coastal multi hazard vulnerability mapping has been carried out along the Krishna–Godavari deltaic plain, eastern coast of India. The study area consisting of four district include East Godavari, West Godavari, Krishna and Gundur which are the area affected by coastal hazards and climate variability. The area witnessed a high erosion rate up to 18 m/year in comparison to other regions in the state. Further this area exhibit low elevated topography, therefore sea level rise would lead to permanent inundation. In the study also identified about that 1147 sq km area is falling under multi hazard zone and around 102 coastal villages are under threat. This study revealed that the use of multi layer information combined with geospatial tools is most reliable and coast effective approach for disaster preparedness and adaptation. The result obtained from the present study may serve the baseline information for disaster management planning in the area.

Sea level rise poses significant threats to coastal nations globally, particularly those with extensive economic exclusive zones (EEZ) and ‎vulnerable coastal infrastructures like Nigeria. This study assesses sea level rise along Nigeria’s EEZ using NASA’s advanced sea level rise ‎tools and satellite data. The research integrates NASA’s altimeter satellite data and digital elevation models (DEMs) to quantify historical ‎trends and project future sea level rise impacts along the Nigerian coastline. Findings indicate the Rate of Sea Level Rise has increased by ‎‎12cm Sea level rise 1993-2023), with 18cm Sea level rise projected for 2050. This indicates a consistent upward trend in sea level, with an ‎average rise rate exceeding global averages due to regional variations. This rise threatens Nigeria’s coastal ecosystems, economic activities ‎, including the oil and shipping industries, and coastal settlements. Strategic adaptation and mitigation planning based on satellite data and predictive modelling are crucial to safeguarding Nigeria’s coastal and marine assets‎.

A RISK ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACTS OF COASTAL FLOODING AND SEALEVEL RISE ON THE EXISTING AND NEW PUMP STATIONS 113 NORFOLK, VIRGINIA David A. Pezza Old Dominion University, 2015 Director: Dr. Gary Schafran The author assessed the risk to a wastewater pump station and a planned replacement located nearby due to coastal flooding and rising sea levels. The locations for the pump stations are in the Larchmont neighborhood by the Lafayette River tidal estuaries in Norfolk, Virginia. The Lafayette River is a tributary to the Elizabeth River, which flows to the Chesapeake Bay. The low-lying areas along the river are subject to coastal surges caused by tropical and extra-tropical storms that flood the bay. The region is considered one of the urban areas most exposed to the accelerating rate of rising sea levels. Six of the highest storm surges on record have occurred since 2003 and even more moderate events have inundated the existing pump station. The flooding impacts the service and reduces the life cycle performance of the pump system. The study compares the vulnerability of the existing pump station to an alternative to replace the station in a new location. It uses systems engineering to define the challenge caused by coastal flooding and future sea levels, and risk-informed decision methodologies to define the exposure. The findings show that the investment in a new

The consensus in the scientific community is that human activity is affecting global climate (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC] 2007), and climate change will significantly alter coastal and wetland ecosystems of the Mississippi delta (Titus et al. 1991; Wilkinson and Buddemeier 1994; Tarasona et al. 2001; Poff et al. 2002; Twilley et al. 2001; Ning et al. 2003; Day et al. 2005). Global climate change will interact with, and magnify, other human stresses on the Mississippi Delta and the goods and services it provides (see Day et al. 2008). Climate change impacts include temperature increase, accelerated sea-level rise, changes in rainfall and freshwater discharge, and changes in the frequency and intensity of tropical storms (Day and Templet 1989; Scavia et al. 2002; Day et al. 2005; Yanez-Arancibia and Day 2005; Hoyos et al. 2006; Day et al. 2008). Both precipitation and evaporation will likely change in the Mississippi Delta and Basin (Day et al. 2005), changing the rate of freshwater input. Because freshwater input affects so many critical parameters and processes in coastal ecosystems, this will be an important way that climate change alters these ecosystems. The rate at which water moves through a system affects many estuarine ecosystem processes. This rate of movement will also be affected by sea-level rise, which may impede drainage. Global warming is leading to accelerated eustatic sea-level rise. The IPCC (2007) predicted that sea level will rise by about 40 cm by 2100 (20−80 cm in the twenty-first century), but recent reports suggest the rise will be a meter or more (Rahmstorf 2007; Vermeer and Rahmstorf 2009). Increasing sea level will strongly impact wetlands of the Delta (Blum and Roberts 2009) through increased inundation of the wetlands, although wetland accretion can offset sea-level rise up to a point, depending on sediment supply and rate of change (Morris et al 2002; Kirwan et al. 2010). Finally a number of reports suggest that global warming will lead to increases in the total and the number of category 4 and 5 storms (Emanuel 2005; Webster et al. 2005; Hoyos et al. 2006). Storms can have both negative (erosion losses) and positive (sediment input) affects on the wetlands in the Mississippi River Delta (MRD) (Conner et al. 1989; Guntenspergen et al. 1995; Turner et al. 2006a, Howes et al. 2010).