The global long-term effects of storm surge flooding on human settlements in coastal areas
People in low-lying coastal areas live under the great threat of damage due to coastal flooding from tropical cyclones. Understanding how coastal population settlements react to such events is of high importance for society to consider future adaptation strategies. Here we generate a new global hydr...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
IOP Publishing
2024-01-01
|
| Series: | Environmental Research Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad18df |
| _version_ | 1797290384544497664 |
|---|---|
| author | Sven Kunze Eric A Strobl |
| author_facet | Sven Kunze Eric A Strobl |
| author_sort | Sven Kunze |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | People in low-lying coastal areas live under the great threat of damage due to coastal flooding from tropical cyclones. Understanding how coastal population settlements react to such events is of high importance for society to consider future adaptation strategies. Here we generate a new global hydrodynamic data set on tropical cyclone-generated storm surge flooding for the period 1851–2020. By combining this data with spatial data on human populations, we analyze the influence of the depth of storm surge flooding on the rural, urban, and total populations in low elevation coastal zones from 1941–2010. We find that in response to a one standard deviation increase in storm surge flooding depth (0.43 m), the exposed population in a $10\times10$ km low elevation coastal zone decreases by around 970 individuals on average per decade. This reduction corresponds to 9% of the average population living in an exposed grid cell. Tropical cyclone generated wind speed and rainfall do not influence the relocation of coastal populations. The majority of the threatened population lives in Eastern, South–Eastern, and Southern Asia. We show that the exposed coastal population appears to have adapted over time by reducing its exposure in recent decades. This finding applies to all regions other than North America, Oceania, and Western Asia. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T19:20:41Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-199c482f381a4f52a06b5b43b4f83c2b |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1748-9326 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T19:20:41Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Environmental Research Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-199c482f381a4f52a06b5b43b4f83c2b2024-02-29T10:31:02ZengIOP PublishingEnvironmental Research Letters1748-93262024-01-0119202401610.1088/1748-9326/ad18dfThe global long-term effects of storm surge flooding on human settlements in coastal areasSven Kunze0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2478-3842Eric A Strobl1Institute for Natural Resource Sciences, Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) , Zurich, SwitzerlandDepartment of Economics, University of Bern , Bern, Switzerland; Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Bern , Bern, SwitzerlandPeople in low-lying coastal areas live under the great threat of damage due to coastal flooding from tropical cyclones. Understanding how coastal population settlements react to such events is of high importance for society to consider future adaptation strategies. Here we generate a new global hydrodynamic data set on tropical cyclone-generated storm surge flooding for the period 1851–2020. By combining this data with spatial data on human populations, we analyze the influence of the depth of storm surge flooding on the rural, urban, and total populations in low elevation coastal zones from 1941–2010. We find that in response to a one standard deviation increase in storm surge flooding depth (0.43 m), the exposed population in a $10\times10$ km low elevation coastal zone decreases by around 970 individuals on average per decade. This reduction corresponds to 9% of the average population living in an exposed grid cell. Tropical cyclone generated wind speed and rainfall do not influence the relocation of coastal populations. The majority of the threatened population lives in Eastern, South–Eastern, and Southern Asia. We show that the exposed coastal population appears to have adapted over time by reducing its exposure in recent decades. This finding applies to all regions other than North America, Oceania, and Western Asia.https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad18dfstorm surgetropical cyclonespanel dataextreme eventscoastal settlementseconometrics |
| spellingShingle | Sven Kunze Eric A Strobl The global long-term effects of storm surge flooding on human settlements in coastal areas Environmental Research Letters storm surge tropical cyclones panel data extreme events coastal settlements econometrics |
| title | The global long-term effects of storm surge flooding on human settlements in coastal areas |
| title_full | The global long-term effects of storm surge flooding on human settlements in coastal areas |
| title_fullStr | The global long-term effects of storm surge flooding on human settlements in coastal areas |
| title_full_unstemmed | The global long-term effects of storm surge flooding on human settlements in coastal areas |
| title_short | The global long-term effects of storm surge flooding on human settlements in coastal areas |
| title_sort | global long term effects of storm surge flooding on human settlements in coastal areas |
| topic | storm surge tropical cyclones panel data extreme events coastal settlements econometrics |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ad18df |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT svenkunze thegloballongtermeffectsofstormsurgefloodingonhumansettlementsincoastalareas AT ericastrobl thegloballongtermeffectsofstormsurgefloodingonhumansettlementsincoastalareas AT svenkunze globallongtermeffectsofstormsurgefloodingonhumansettlementsincoastalareas AT ericastrobl globallongtermeffectsofstormsurgefloodingonhumansettlementsincoastalareas |