A Multi-Risk Methodology for the Assessment of Climate Change Impacts in Coastal Zones

Abstract

Climate change threatens coastal areas, posing significant risks to natural and human systems, including coastal erosion and inundation. This paper presents a multi-risk approach integrating multiple climate-related hazards and exposure and vulnerability factors across different spatial units and temporal scales. The multi-hazard assessment employs an influence matrix to analyze the relationships among hazards (sea-level rise, coastal erosion, and storm surge) and their disjoint probability. The multi-vulnerability considers the susceptibility of the exposed receptors (wetlands, beaches, and urban areas) to different hazards based on multiple indicators (dunes, shoreline evolution, and urbanization rate). The methodology was applied in the North Adriatic coast, producing a ranking of multi-hazard risks by means of GIS maps and statistics. The results highlight that the higher multi-hazard score (meaning presence of all investigated hazards) is near the coastline while multi-vulnerability is relatively high in the whole case study, especially for beaches, wetlands, protected areas, and river mouths. The overall multi-risk score presents a trend similar to multi-hazard and shows that beaches is the receptor most affected by multiple risks (60% of surface in the higher multi-risk classes). Risk statistics were developed for coastal municipalities and local stakeholders to support the setting of adaptation priorities and coastal zone management plans.