Coastal Flood Assessment due to Sea Level Rise and Extreme Storm Events: A Case Study of the Atlantic Coast of Portugal’s Mainland
1
Instituto Dom Luiz, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
2
Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade de Lisboa, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Geosciences 2019, 9(5), 239; https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9050239
Received: 3 May 2019
/
Revised: 17 May 2019
/
Accepted: 22 May 2019
/
Published: 24 May 2019
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impacts of Compound Hydrological Hazards or Extremes)
Portugal’s mainland has hundreds of thousands of people living in the Atlantic coastal zone, with numerous high economic value activities and a high number of infrastructures that must be adapted and protected from natural coastal hazards, namely, extreme storms and sea level rise (SLR). In the context of climate change adaptation strategies, a reliable and accurate assessment of the physical vulnerability to SLR is crucial. This study is a contribution to the implementation of flooding standards imposed by the European Directive 2007/60/EC, which requires each member state to assess the risk associated to SLR and floods caused by extreme events. Therefore, coastal hazard on the Atlantic Coast of Portugal’s mainland was evaluated for 2025, 2050, and 2100 over the whole extension due to SLR, with different sea level scenarios for different extreme event return periods. A coastal probabilistic flooding map was produced based on the developed probabilistic cartography methodology using geographic information system (GIS) technology. The Extreme Flood Hazard Index (EFHI) was determined on probabilistic flood bases using five probability intervals of 20% amplitude. For a given SLR scenario, the EFHI is expressed, on the probabilistic flooding maps for an extreme tidal maximum level, by five hazard classes ranging from 1 (Very Low) to 5 (Extreme).
View Full-Text
Keywords:
sea level rise; coastal flood hazard; storm surge; extreme tidal level; probabilistic cartography; Portugal coast; GIS
▼
Show Figures
Figure 1
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Antunes, C.; Rocha, C.; Catita, C. Coastal Flood Assessment due to Sea Level Rise and Extreme Storm Events: A Case Study of the Atlantic Coast of Portugal’s Mainland. Geosciences 2019, 9, 239. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9050239
AMA Style
Antunes C, Rocha C, Catita C. Coastal Flood Assessment due to Sea Level Rise and Extreme Storm Events: A Case Study of the Atlantic Coast of Portugal’s Mainland. Geosciences. 2019; 9(5):239. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9050239
Chicago/Turabian StyleAntunes, Carlos, Carolina Rocha, and Cristina Catita. 2019. "Coastal Flood Assessment due to Sea Level Rise and Extreme Storm Events: A Case Study of the Atlantic Coast of Portugal’s Mainland" Geosciences 9, no. 5: 239. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences9050239
Find Other Styles
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
