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Urban Science
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Coastal Urban Dynamics under Climate Change
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Coastal Urban Dynamics under Climate Change

A special issue of Urban Science (ISSN 2413-8851).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2023) | Viewed by 15562

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Scheffran

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Geography, University of Hamburg, 20144 Hamburg, Germany
Interests: climate change and security; coastal vulnerability and adaptation; rural‐urban interaction; land‐use conflict; water‐energy‐food nexus; human migration, agent‐based modelling; complexity science
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Dmitry V. Kovalevsky

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Helmholtz‐Zentrum Hereon, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany
Interests: urban models; urban dynamics; coastal cities; climate change; adaptation; mitigation; climate services
Dr. Laurens M. Bouwer

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS), Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon, 20095 Geesthacht, Germany
Interests: flooding; risk assessment; climate change; impact modelling; vulnerability and adaptation

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Urbanization processes, intensely felt on a global scale and involving a significant proportion of global population, are particularly pronounced in coastal zones. Rapid urbanization exacerbates the susceptibility of settlements to severe climate‐related coastal hazards. Both urban dynamic trends and climate change effects should be considered in coastal vulnerability assessments, as well as urban and coastal spatial planning and management.

Climate adaptation strategies for coastal urban areas can develop a broad spectrum of versatile measures, including nature‐based solutions, traditional coastal defenses such as embankments and dikes, as well as mid‐ and long‐term coastal urban planning and relocation.

To inform decision making on adaptation, deeper understanding of multifaceted coastal urban dynamics under climate change is required, including the development of comprehensive inter‐ and transdisciplinary modelling tools adequately reflecting the complexity of the socionatural systems under study.

This Special Issue explores coastal urban dynamics under the influence of climate change and responses to adaptation challenges. The Guest Editors of this Special Issue encourage submissions with applications of qualitative and quantitative methods and descriptive and modeling studies across disciplines. Model‐based research tackling these complex dynamics is particularly welcome, along with studies exploring how climate adaptation of coastal cities can be supported by coastal climate services.

Prof. Dr. Jürgen Scheffran
Dr. Dmitry V. Kovalevsky
Dr. Laurens M. Bouwer
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Urban Science is an international peer-reviewed open access quarterly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • coastal city
  • urban dynamics
  • climate change
  • coastal hazards
  • sea-level change
  • vulnerability
  • adaptation
  • resilience
  • nature-based solutions
  • coastal protection
  • relocation
  • modelling
  • climate services

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Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

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15 pages, 2946 KiB  
Article
Rehabilitation of Urban Beaches on the Mediterranean Coast in Valencia (Spain) Observed by Remote Sensing
by Juan Víctor Molner, Rebeca Pérez-González and Juan M. Soria
Urban Sci. 2024, 8(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci8010003 - 2 Jan 2024
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3485
Abstract
Beaches, as ecosystems of high ecosocial and biodiversity importance, are threatened by human activities such as city development and port construction. This study used satellite imagery (Landsat 5, Landsat 8, and Sentinel-2) to detect a significant reduction of 70% in the beach areas [...] Read more.
Beaches, as ecosystems of high ecosocial and biodiversity importance, are threatened by human activities such as city development and port construction. This study used satellite imagery (Landsat 5, Landsat 8, and Sentinel-2) to detect a significant reduction of 70% in the beach areas of El Saler and La Garrofera (Valencia, Spain) from 170 ha in the 1990s to 43 ha in the year 2022. This process has occurred in parallel with the successive expansion of the Port of Valencia, a modifying agent of marine sedimentation in the region. In addition, encouraging results have been observed in the rehabilitation efforts in different periods. The latest work in the autumn of 2023 has improved the beach area to 112 ha. In this context, remote sensing emerges as an essential tool to monitor these ecosystems, which are important for both human welfare and biodiversity conservation, as well as to allow for monitoring during ecological restoration. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal Urban Dynamics under Climate Change)
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27 pages, 8893 KiB  
Article
Urban Planning of Coastal Adaptation under Sea-Level Rise: An Agent-Based Model in the VIABLE Framework
by Shubhankar Sengupta, Dmitry V. Kovalevsky, Laurens M. Bouwer and Jürgen Scheffran
Urban Sci. 2023, 7(3), 79; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci7030079 - 27 Jul 2023
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2433
Abstract
Coastal flood risk and sea-level rise require decisions on investment in coastal protection and, in some cases, the relocation of urban areas. Models that formalize the relations between flooding costs, protective investments, and relocation can improve the analysis of the processes and issues [...] Read more.
Coastal flood risk and sea-level rise require decisions on investment in coastal protection and, in some cases, the relocation of urban areas. Models that formalize the relations between flooding costs, protective investments, and relocation can improve the analysis of the processes and issues involved and help to support decision-making better. In this paper, an agent-based model of a coastal city is represented in NetLogo. This model is based on the VIABLE modeling framework and describes adaptive dynamic agent behavior in a changing system. The hypothetical city faces damage caused by gradually rising sea levels and subsequent extreme sea-level events. To mitigate these risks, an “urban planner” agent has two adaptation measures at their disposal: developing coastal defenses or, as a more extreme measure, relocating vulnerable areas inland. As the simulation progresses and the decisions change with rising sea levels, the agent alters investments in these two measures to increase its value function, resulting in dynamic reactive behavior. Additionally, gradual sea-level rise is implemented in various modes, along with extreme sea-level events that cause severe short-term damage. The results of simulations under these modes and with multiple scenarios of agent action are presented. On average, agent behavior is quite reactive under limited foresight. Individual simulations yield a ‘priming’ effect when comparing different timings of extreme sea-level events, wherein an earlier extreme event primes the agent to adapt and thus be better prepared for subsequent events. Agent success with adaptation is also found to be sensitive to the costs involved, and these varying degrees of adaptation success are quantified using three parameters of adaptation success. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal Urban Dynamics under Climate Change)
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20 pages, 2193 KiB  
Article
Unequal Landscapes: Vulnerability Traps in Informal Settlements of the Jacuí River Delta (Brazil)
by Alexandre Pereira Santos, Juan Miguel Rodriguez-Lopez, Cleiton Chiarel and Jürgen Scheffran
Urban Sci. 2022, 6(4), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci6040076 - 30 Oct 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2477
Abstract
How just are risk responses that worsen vulnerability in the long term? Should the urban poor be left with self-reliance when facing hazards in the Anthropocene? This research investigates urban development and vulnerability in the Anthropocene. While it is known that informal settlements [...] Read more.
How just are risk responses that worsen vulnerability in the long term? Should the urban poor be left with self-reliance when facing hazards in the Anthropocene? This research investigates urban development and vulnerability in the Anthropocene. While it is known that informal settlements face greater hazards than most urbanized areas, there are different landscapes of risk. The analysis explores divergent risk-response strategies among households according to their residents’ risk perception and response capacity in two different landscapes of an urban delta using logit regression models. These models evaluate the associations between 14 response options to floods and control for factors of income, age, number of residents in the household, location, access to vehicles, and self-identified ethnicity. This study uses data from the Living with Floods Survey by the World Bank to investigate risk responses to the 2015 flood in the Jacuí River delta. The analysis considers a large sample of households (n = 1451) in informal settlements. The results show the intense influence of income on location choice and response capacity. We also found that income is a more robust social descriptor of response capacity than age or ethnicity. Risk perception proved limited in determining response strategies and can be associated with resignation to losses from floods. We argue that these results suggest trade-offs between short- and long-term responses to hazards in informal settlements in coastal and delta regions, which link adaptive behavior to environmental justice. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal Urban Dynamics under Climate Change)
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13 pages, 436 KiB  
Article
A Two-Period Model of Coastal Urban Adaptation Supported by Climate Services
by Dmitry V. Kovalevsky and Jürgen Scheffran
Urban Sci. 2022, 6(4), 65; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci6040065 - 23 Sep 2022
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2272
Abstract
Coastal zones are experiencing rapid urbanization at unprecedented rates. At the same time, coastal cities are the most prone to climate-related vulnerability, including impacts of sea-level rise and climate-related coastal hazards under the present and projected future climate. Decision making about coastal urban [...] Read more.
Coastal zones are experiencing rapid urbanization at unprecedented rates. At the same time, coastal cities are the most prone to climate-related vulnerability, including impacts of sea-level rise and climate-related coastal hazards under the present and projected future climate. Decision making about coastal urban climate adaptation can be informed by coastal climate services based on modeling tools. We develop a two-period coastal urban adaptation model in which two periods—the present and the future—are distinguished. In the model, a city agent anticipates sea-level rise and related coastal flood hazards with adverse impacts in the future period that, through damages, will reduce the urban income. However, the magnitude of future sea-level rise and induced damages are characterized by uncertainty. The urban planning agent has to make an investment decision under uncertainty: whether to invest in climate adaptation (in the form of construction of coastal protection) or not, and if so, how much. The decision making of the urban agent is derived from intertemporal maximization of expected time-discounted consumption. An exact solution in the closed form is derived for an analytically tractable particular case, for which it is shown that investment decisions depend discontinuously on the value of a single non-dimensional model indicator. When this indicator exceeds a certain threshold value, the urban agent discontinuously switches from the ‘business-as-usual’ (BaU) strategy when no adaptation investment is taken to a proactive adaptation. The role of coastal climate services in informing the decision making on adaptation strategies is discussed. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal Urban Dynamics under Climate Change)
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Review

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23 pages, 2939 KiB  
Review
Integrating Biophysical and Economic Assessment: Review of Nature-Based Adaptation to Urban Flood Extremes
by Carlotta Quagliolo, Peter Roebeling, Rita Mendonça, Alessandro Pezzoli and Elena Comino
Urban Sci. 2022, 6(3), 53; https://doi.org/10.3390/urbansci6030053 - 23 Aug 2022
Cited by 5 | Viewed by 3290
Abstract
Over the last decade, the potential of nature-based solutions (NBS) has been recognized to support climate change adaptation, by promoting sustainable urban planning. Nevertheless, a wider uptake of such solutions in urban areas faces different challenges and barriers. A comprehensive mapping of available [...] Read more.
Over the last decade, the potential of nature-based solutions (NBS) has been recognized to support climate change adaptation, by promoting sustainable urban planning. Nevertheless, a wider uptake of such solutions in urban areas faces different challenges and barriers. A comprehensive mapping of available NBS impact assessment methods could help to accelerate this process. There is, however, a lack of comprehensive systematization of economic analysis. This research aims to provide an overview of NBS impact evaluations by assessing how the scientific literature integrates such economic analysis into urban planning adaptation. A systematic review approach has been used to discuss the role of NBS in climate change adaptation. This review presents two main stages. Firstly, it identifies the biophysical–economic assessment of NBS adaptation measures to reduce urban flood extremes in coastal cities. Secondly, the NBS approaches were categorized based on the biophysical benefits (in terms of flood-risk reduction) related to each specific solution and the subsequent economic evaluation of such implementations. This research review revealed a low-level gap of integration between climate change issues and NBS analysis (i.e., it is commonly used as background condition). Most publications provide NBS biophysical impacts assessment, without combining these results with economic evaluation of the flood damages to finally achieve the avoided cost due to the implementation of such solutions. This work shows the growing interest on further research to develop spatially integrated environmental–economic assessment of NBS implementation, by highlighting the needs and opportunities of a trans-disciplinary approach to support policy-making in the framework of urban climate change adaptation. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Coastal Urban Dynamics under Climate Change)
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