An economic evaluation of adaptation pathways in coastal mega cities: An illustration for Los Angeles

Ruig, Lars T. de; Barnard, Patrick L.; Botzen, Wouter; Grifman, Phyllis; Hart, Juliette Finzi; Moel, Hans de; Sadrpour, Nick; Aerts, Jeroen C. J. H.

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.04.308

Cited by 46 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…Typically, with available probabilistic flood hazard footprints to 2100, annual expected damages to populations and assets in the delta city may be evaluated under both present and future conditions. Our analysis combined with cost-benefit assessment (Ruig et al, 2019) can be further used to identify areas where investments in protective measures should be prioritized and to identify tipping points when (new) adaptation options should be emphasized, thus providing a strong basis for maintenance and/or improvement of the optimal protection standard along the coast and river. Particularly, a movable barrier system at the mouth of Huangpu River (like the Thames Barrier for London and the Maeslantkering Barrier for Rotterdam) should be considered for Shanghai.…”

Section: 1029/2020ef001614mentioning

confidence: 99%

Flood Risks in Sinking Delta Cities: Time for a Reevaluation?

et al. 2020

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Sea level rise (SLR) and subsidence are expected to increase the risk of flooding and reliance on flood defenses for cities built on deltas. Here, we combine reliability analysis with hydrodynamic modeling to quantify the effect of projected relative SLR on dike failures and flood hazards for Shanghai, one of the most exposed delta cities. We find that flood inundation is likely to occur in low‐lying and poorly protected periurban/rural areas of the city even under the present‐day sea level. However, without adaptation measures, the risk increases by a factor of 3–160 across the densely populated floodplain under projected SLR to 2100. Impacts of frequent flood events are predicted to be more affected by SLR than those with longer return periods. Our results imply that including reliability‐based dike failures in flood simulations enables more credible flood risk assessment for global delta cities where conventional methods have assumed either overtopping only or complete failure.

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Section: 1029/2020ef001614mentioning

confidence: 99%

Flood Risks in Sinking Delta Cities: Time for a Reevaluation?

et al. 2020

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“…This new approach, establishing new flood hazard regimes based on a calendar date, effectively communicates the urgency for sea-level rise planning and adaptation. This concept has been further expanded by introducing the concept of a 'trigger' 22 or an 'adaptation pathway' 26,27 , i.e., the combination of an intermediate sea-level threshold and an associated time frame when decisions must be made, in order to provide sufficient lead-time to efficiently adapt in a cost-effective manner before more critical flood hazard thresholds are exceeded.…”

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confidence: 99%

Sea-level rise exponentially increases coastal flood frequency

Taherkhani

Vitousek

Barnard

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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209

106

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Sea-level rise will radically redefine the coastline of the 21 st century. For many coastal regions, projections of global sea-level rise by the year 2100 (e.g., 0.5-2 meters) are comparable in magnitude to today's extreme but short-lived increases in water level due to storms. Thus, the 21 st century will see significant changes to coastal flooding regimes (where present-day, extreme-but-rare events become common), which poses a major risk to the safety and sustainability of coastal communities worldwide. So far, estimates of future coastal flooding frequency focus on endpoint scenarios, such as the increase in flooding by 2050 or 2100. Here, we investigate the continuous shift in coastal flooding regimes by quantifying continuous rates of increase in the occurrence of extreme water-level events due to sealevel rise. We find that the odds of exceeding critical water-level thresholds increases exponentially with sea-level rise, meaning that fixed amounts of sea-level rise of only ~1-10 cm in areas with a narrow range of present-day extreme water levels can double the odds of flooding. Combining these growth rates with established sea-level rise projections, we find that the odds of extreme flooding double approximately every 5 years into the future. Further, we find that the present-day 50-year extreme water level (i.e., 2% annual chance of exceedance, based on historical records) will be exceeded annually before 2050 for most (i.e., 70%) of the coastal regions in the United States. Looking even farther into the future, the present-day 50-year extreme water level will be exceeded almost every day during peak tide (i.e., daily mean higher high water) before the end of the 21 st century for 90% of the U.S. coast. Our findings underscore the need for immediate planning and adaptation to mitigate the societal impacts of future flooding. Sea-level rise is slow, yet consequential 1 and accelerating 2. Upper-end sea-level rise scenarios could displace hundreds of millions of people by the end of the 21 st century 3. However, even small amounts of sea-level rise can disproportionately increase coastal flood frequency 4,5. A multitude of oceanic processes affect both mean and extreme water levels, such as the tide, tropical and extratropical storms, climatic cycles (e.g., El Nino/Southern Oscillation), oceanic eddies, and circulation patterns 6-11. Hence, the frequency and severity of coastal flooding varies on a multitude of time scales. Yet, the persistent trend and acceleration of sea-level rise have a profound interaction with transient extreme events 12. In theory, sea-level rise progressively increases the frequency and severity of flooding 5. In practice, the monotonic increase in flooding, driven by elevating long-term mean sea level, is often overshadowed by interannual variability in extreme events 13 , which will likely continue through the middle of the 21 st century 14. Many have quantified future increases in potential coastal flood frequency by deriving 'multiplying factors' 15 , 'amplification factors' 16 ...

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“…Path dependency and lock‐in effects could be intrinsically considered when constructing adaptation pathways, or—as inspired by the significance of measuring flexibility in strategic planning (Rosenhead, 1980; Rosenhead et al, 1972)—explicitly quantified through the concept of “transfer costs” (Haasnoot et al, 2019). The adaptation pathways approach has been predominantly used in national and local scale IAMs in water and energy domains (de Ruig et al, 2019; Michas et al, 2020; Radhakrishnan et al, 2017).…”

Section: Recent Practices In Incorporating Justice In Model‐based Climate Planningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enabling assessment of distributive justice through models for climate change planning: A review of recent advances and a research agenda

Jafino

Kwakkel

Taebi

2021

WIREs Climate Change

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Models for supporting climate adaptation and mitigation planning, mostly in the form of Integrated Assessment Models, are poorly equipped for aiding questions related to fairness of adaptation and mitigation strategies, because they often disregard distributional outcomes. When evaluating policies using such models, the costs and benefits are typically aggregated across all actors in the system, and over the entire planning horizon. While a policy may be beneficial when considering the aggregate outcome, it can be harmful to some people, somewhere, at some point in time. The practice of aggregating over all actors and over time thus gives rise to problems of justice; it could also exacerbate existing injustices. While the literature discusses some of these injustices in ad‐hoc and case specific manner, a systematic approach for considering distributive justice in model‐based climate change planning is lacking. This study aims to fill this gap by proposing 11 requirements that an Integrated Assessment Model should meet in order to enable the assessment of distributive justice in climate mitigation and adaptation policies. We derive the requirements from various ethical imperatives stemming from the theory of distributive justice. More specifically, we consider both intra‐generational (among people within one generation) and intergenerational (between generations) distributive justice. We investigate to what extent the 11 requirements are being met in recent model‐based climate planning studies, and highlight several directions for future research to advance the accounting for distributive justice in model‐based support for climate change planning. This article is categorized under: Climate, Nature, and Ethics > Climate Change and Global Justice

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An economic evaluation of adaptation pathways in coastal mega cities: An illustration for Los Angeles

Cited by 46 publications

References 42 publications

Flood Risks in Sinking Delta Cities: Time for a Reevaluation?

Flood Risks in Sinking Delta Cities: Time for a Reevaluation?

Sea-level rise exponentially increases coastal flood frequency

Enabling assessment of distributive justice through models for climate change planning: A review of recent advances and a research agenda

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