A global analysis of extreme coastal water levels with implications for potential coastal overtopping

Rafael Almar (), Roshanka Ranasinghe, Erwin W. J. Bergsma, Harold Diaz, Angelique Melet, Fabrice Papa, Michalis Vousdoukas, Panagiotis Athanasiou, Olusegun Dada, Luis Pedro Almeida and Elodie Kestenare
Additional contact information
Rafael Almar: LEGOS (CNRS/IRD/CNES/Toulouse University)
Roshanka Ranasinghe: IHE Delft Institute for Water Education
Erwin W. J. Bergsma: LEGOS (CNRS/IRD/CNES/Toulouse University)
Harold Diaz: LEGOS (CNRS/IRD/CNES/Toulouse University)
Angelique Melet: Mercator-Ocean
Fabrice Papa: LEGOS (CNRS/IRD/CNES/Toulouse University)
Michalis Vousdoukas: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC)
Panagiotis Athanasiou: Harbour, Coastal and Offshore Engineering, Deltares
Olusegun Dada: Federal University of Technology
Luis Pedro Almeida: Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul
Elodie Kestenare: LEGOS (CNRS/IRD/CNES/Toulouse University)

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Climate change and anthropogenic pressures are widely expected to exacerbate coastal hazards such as episodic coastal flooding. This study presents global-scale potential coastal overtopping estimates, which account for not only the effects of sea level rise and storm surge, but also for wave runup at exposed open coasts. Here we find that the globally aggregated annual overtopping hours have increased by almost 50% over the last two decades. A first-pass future assessment indicates that globally aggregated annual overtopping hours will accelerate faster than the global mean sea-level rise itself, with a clearly discernible increase occurring around mid-century regardless of climate scenario. Under RCP 8.5, the globally aggregated annual overtopping hours by the end of the 21st-century is projected to be up to 50 times larger compared to present-day. As sea level continues to rise, more regions around the world are projected to become exposed to coastal overtopping.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24008-9 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-24008-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-24008-9

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().