Assessing coastal flood risk at specific sites and regional scales: Regional assessment of coastal flood risk

Nicholls, R.J. and Mokrech, M. (2005) Assessing coastal flood risk at specific sites and regional scales: Regional assessment of coastal flood risk Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research 63pp.

Abstract

Climate change will increase the risk of flooding in coastal areas, compounding other adverse trends such as increased flood risk due to falling beach levels. Existing assessment methods either focus on the present climatic situation, or only consider a limited number of change scenarios. To fully assess changing flood risk due to climate change a range of consistent 'tiered' methods which can assess a range of change factors and collectively operate at a range of scales are required. The proposed research project will develop this 'tiered' approach from broad-brush regional assessments to detailed process-based local assessments and demonstrate it on the East Anglian coast. The work will contribute to the Tyndall Centre's flagship regional coastal simulator. The specific objectives are as follows:
1. To establish a tiered framework for coastal flood risk assessment that can be integrated with the regional coastal simulator.
2. To develop consistent scenarios of long-term change that will influence coastal flooding, including climate, morphology, societal values, and coastal policy.
3. To apply the tiered risk assessment methodology to generate (i) a regional assessment of the risk of coastal flooding, (ii) selective more detailed local case studies and (iii) analysis of uncertainty under different scenarios of change.
4. To evaluate the impacts and resulting vulnerability given the range of flood risk defined in objective 3.
5. To use these new results to engage relevant stakeholders and identify methods of promoting dialogue about long-term sustainable management of coastal flood risk.

The resulting methods will be widely applicable.

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Contributors

Author: R.J. Nicholls

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