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Distributed process modeling for regional assessment of coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise

journal contribution
posted on 2001-03-01, 00:00 authored by Brett BryanBrett Bryan, N Harvey, T Belperio, B Bourman
Sea-level rise involves increases in the coastal processes of inundation and erosion which are affected by a complex interplay of physical environmental parameters at the coast. Many assessments of coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise have been detailed and localised in extent. There is a need for regional assessment techniques which identify areas vulnerable to sea-level rise. Four physical environmental parameters - elevation, exposure, aspect and slope, are modeled on a regional scale for the Northern Spencer Gulf (NSG) study area using commonly available low-resolution elevation data of 10 m contour interval and GIS-based spatial modeling techniques. For comparison, the same parameters are modeled on a fine-scale for the False Bay area within the NSG using high-resolution elevation data. Physical environmental parameters on the two scales are statistically compared to coastal vulnerability classes as identified by Harvey et al. [1] using the Spearman rank-correlation test and stepwise linear regression. Coastal vulnerability is strongly correlated with elevation and exposure at both scales and this relationship is only slightly stronger for the high resolution False Bay data. The results of this study suggest that regional scale distributed coastal process modeling may be suitable as a "first cut" in assessing coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise in tide-dominated, sedimentary coastal regions. Distributed coastal process modeling provides a suitable basis for the assessment of coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise of sufficient accuracy for on-ground management and priority-setting on a regional scale.

History

Journal

Environmental modeling and assessment

Volume

6

Pagination

57-65

Location

Dordrecht, The Netherlands

ISSN

1420-2026

eISSN

1573-2967

Language

eng

Publication classification

C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2001, Kluwer Academic Publishers

Issue

1

Publisher

Kluwer Academic Publishers

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