DATE2016-05-31 17:15:14
IDABSTRACT20160531171514-1088
CONTACTvafeidis@geographie.uni-kiel.de
PRESENTATIONORAL-PLENARY
INVITED0
IDSESSION4
TITLEIMPACTS OF SEA-LEVEL RISE AND BENEFITS OF COASTAL ADAPTATION IN THE MEDITERRANEAN: AN APPLICATION OF DIVA
AUTHORSAthanasios Thomas Vafeidis (1), Claudia Wolff (1), Daniel Lincke (2), Sally Brown (3), Pierro Lionello (4), Jochen Hinkel (2)
AFFILIATIONS
  1. University Of Kiel Kiel (Germany)
  2. Global Climate Forum Berlin (Germany)
  3. University Of Southampton Southampton (United Kingdom)
  4. Universita Del Salento Lecce (Italy)
ABSTRACTWe employ the DIVA modelling framework to assess the long-term (until 2100) impacts of sea-level rise and to explore the potential benefits of a range of coastal adaptation measures for the Mediterranean basin. We focus on coastal flood risk and erosion and evaluate the implementation of hard protection (in the form of dikes), setback zones and private adaptation measures, under a range of high-end physical (RCP 8.5 and 4.5) and socio-economic (SSP3 and SSP5) scenarios. Preliminary results suggest that adaptation in the form of hard protection or the combination of hard protection with setback zones is highly effective in reducing both the number of people affected by floods and the damages to assets. Nevertheless, substantial initial investments are required for building dikes while the implementation of setback zones involves numerous institutional and governance challenges. Accommodation, in the form of implementing measures to reduce flood damage at household-level, can effectively reduce damage costs and is relatively easy to implement. Costs of protection are unevenly distributed between countries and amount to a significant proportion of the GDP for some Mediterranean nations. Socio-economic development also appears to have a significant effect on impacts. Our results show that at regional scale, a mix of protection by dikes and setback zones in unprotected areas seem to be most efficient in reducing damages. However, specific protection options for most vulnerable and densely populated regions, such as large port cities need to be considered and implemented, as for these regions hard protection is expected to be highly cost-efficient.
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