Assessment of the Coastal Vulnerability to the Ongoing Sea Level Rise for the Exquisite Rhodes Island (SE Aegean Sea, Greece)

Abstract

The foreseeable acceleration of global sea level rise could potentially pose a major threat to the natural charm and functional integrity of the world-renowned tourist coastal attractions of Rhodes Island, as a result of the anticipated increasing frequency of flooding and erosion events. Hence, this study aims to determine the most vulnerable segments (in terms of physical impact) of the Rhodes coastline through the widely accepted coastal vulnerability index (CVI), applying a combination of well-known, broadly used approaches and methods. The frequency distribution of the current CVI along the island’s coastline suggests a rather worrying high to very high vulnerability of 40%. In addition, a CVI projection to the end of the 21st century (based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictive scenarios) indicates an enhancement of the total vulnerability by 48%, mainly focused on the majority of the western coastline. Hence, a considerable number of popular coastal destinations in the island shall remain under unignorable threat and, therefore, coastal managers and decision-makers need to hatch an integrated plan to minimize economic and natural losses, private property damage and tourism infrastructure deterioration from flooding and erosion episodes, which will most likely be intensified in the future.

An Index-Based Method to Assess the Resilience of Urban Areas to Coastal Flooding: The Case of Attica, Greece

“…The database was processed through a GIS environment, using the ArcMap (v. 10.8) and ArcGIS Pro (v. 2.8). The ranking scheme for the evaluation of the parameters used was created after combining different approaches of widely used indices (e.g., [15][16][17], with later modifications (e.g., [21,24,33,50,88]), as well as more complex indices (e.g., [25][26][27]51]). The ranking refers to factors that affect the exposure (e.g., Mean-Max significant wave height), sensitivity (e.g., coastal landforms), and adaptive capacity (e.g., distance from hospitals, fire departments, police stations), which are crucial components of resilience in the coastal area.…”

Enhanced Port Vulnerability Assessment Using Unmanned-Aerial-Vehicle-Based Structural Health Monitoring

“…Vulnerability is a dynamic concept that changes through time and across societies [26]. While coastal vulnerability assessment has evolved into a mature science with numerous publications attempting to modify or update baseline studies (e.g., [27]), depending on the research scope of each authors' team (e.g., geological aspects) [28,29], port vulnerability assessment is still quite a challenging issue, considering the complexity of this infrastructure system. Based on the current literature review, variations were observed in the methodologies applied to quantify vulnerability, the aspects examined to approach vulnerability issues (e.g., ecological, socioeconomic, and physical aspects), and the number and category of parameters integrated into assessment applications, as further explained below.…”

The Role of Sea State to the Morphological Changes of Prasonisi Tombolo, Rhodes Island, Greece

“…The salient can be maintained for a period of a few months to a few years, switching afterwards to a tombolo again as a result of coastal morphodynamics. This changeable landform seems to adapt its shape to the dominant wave regime, since the tidal range is very low (a few tens of centimeters) [26]. It is quite possible that during the constructive periods, sediment being transported from the nearshore zone to the beach nourishes and feeds the tombolo, while during the destructive periods, sediment moves in the opposite direction to the sea building or expands submerged longitudinal sandbar.…”

“…Particularly, Prasonisi and the broader area is integrated at the Natura_2000 network as a Special Protection Area (SPA), Site of Community Importance (SCI), and Special Area of Conservation (SAC) with the code GR4210031 and site name "Notio Akro Rodou, Prasonisi, Ygrotopos Livadi Kattavias" since 2005. It is also well known for different tourist activities such as windsurfing, kitesurfing, hotel amenities, beach bars, etc., due to its distinctive morphology and since it is exposed to a variety of wind-wave conditions [26]. The mean seafloor slope at the northwestern side of the tombolo is 1%, which is about half of that at the southeastern side (2%).…”