Accounting for tropical cyclones more than doubles the global population exposed to low-probability coastal flooding

Job C.M. Dullaart; Sanne Muis; Nadia Bloemendaal; Maria V. Chertova; Anaïs Couasnon; Jeroen C.J.H. Aerts

doi:10.1038/s43247-021-00204-9

Accounting for tropical cyclones more than doubles the global population exposed to low-probability coastal flooding

Job C.M. Dullaart^*, Sanne Muis, Nadia Bloemendaal, Maria V. Chertova, Anaïs Couasnon, Jeroen C.J.H. Aerts

^*Corresponding author for this work

Water and Climate Risk

Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article › Academic › peer-review

Abstract

Storm surges that occur along low-lying, densely populated coastlines can leave devastating societal, economical, and ecological impacts. To protect coastal communities from flooding, return periods of storm tides, defined as the combination of the surge and tide, must be accurately evaluated. Here we present storm tide return periods using a novel integration of two modelling techniques. For surges induced by extratropical cyclones, we use a 38-year time series based on the ERA5 climate reanalysis. For surges induced by tropical cyclones, we use synthetic tropical cyclones from the STORM dataset representing 10,000 years under current climate conditions. Tropical and extratropical cyclone surge levels are probabilistically combined with tidal levels, and return periods are computed empirically. We estimate that 78 million people are exposed to a 1 in 1000-year flood caused by extratropical cyclones, which more than doubles to 192 M people when taking tropical cyclones into account. Our results show that previous studies have underestimated the global exposure to low-probability coastal flooding by 31%.

Original language	English
Article number	135
Pages (from-to)	1-11
Number of pages	11
Journal	Communications Earth and Environment
Volume	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-021-00204-9
Publication status	Published - 29 Jun 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We would like to thank Martin Verlaan and Maialen Irazoqui Apecechea from Deltares for their support with the use of GTSM. The authors also acknowledge Arne Arns for sharing his thoughts on the statistical analysis. We would also like to thank Ivan Haigh and Reza Marsooli for providing validation data. We thank Maxime Moge from SURFsara ( http://www.surfsara.nl ) for his support in using the Cartesius Computer Cluster. J.D. received funding from the COASTRISK project financed by the SCOR Corporate Foundation for Science (R/003316.01). S.M. and M.C. received funding from the research program MOSAIC with project number ASDI.2018.036, which is financed by the NWO. N.B. and J.A. are funded by a VICI grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (Grant Number 453-13-006) and the ERC Advanced Grant COASTMOVE #884442. A.C. was supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) (VIDI; grant no. 016.161.324). This work was sponsored by NWO Exact and Natural Sciences for the use of supercomputer facilities (grant no. 2020.007).

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© 2021, The Author(s).

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@article{1b24a68e668c4083b4c43109257bb409,

title = "Accounting for tropical cyclones more than doubles the global population exposed to low-probability coastal flooding",

abstract = "Storm surges that occur along low-lying, densely populated coastlines can leave devastating societal, economical, and ecological impacts. To protect coastal communities from flooding, return periods of storm tides, defined as the combination of the surge and tide, must be accurately evaluated. Here we present storm tide return periods using a novel integration of two modelling techniques. For surges induced by extratropical cyclones, we use a 38-year time series based on the ERA5 climate reanalysis. For surges induced by tropical cyclones, we use synthetic tropical cyclones from the STORM dataset representing 10,000 years under current climate conditions. Tropical and extratropical cyclone surge levels are probabilistically combined with tidal levels, and return periods are computed empirically. We estimate that 78 million people are exposed to a 1 in 1000-year flood caused by extratropical cyclones, which more than doubles to 192 M people when taking tropical cyclones into account. Our results show that previous studies have underestimated the global exposure to low-probability coastal flooding by 31%.",

author = "Dullaart, {Job C.M.} and Sanne Muis and Nadia Bloemendaal and Chertova, {Maria V.} and Ana{\"i}s Couasnon and Aerts, {Jeroen C.J.H.}",

note = "Funding Information: We would like to thank Martin Verlaan and Maialen Irazoqui Apecechea from Deltares for their support with the use of GTSM. The authors also acknowledge Arne Arns for sharing his thoughts on the statistical analysis. We would also like to thank Ivan Haigh and Reza Marsooli for providing validation data. We thank Maxime Moge from SURFsara ( http://www.surfsara.nl ) for his support in using the Cartesius Computer Cluster. J.D. received funding from the COASTRISK project financed by the SCOR Corporate Foundation for Science (R/003316.01). S.M. and M.C. received funding from the research program MOSAIC with project number ASDI.2018.036, which is financed by the NWO. N.B. and J.A. are funded by a VICI grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (Grant Number 453-13-006) and the ERC Advanced Grant COASTMOVE #884442. A.C. was supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) (VIDI; grant no. 016.161.324). This work was sponsored by NWO Exact and Natural Sciences for the use of supercomputer facilities (grant no. 2020.007). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2021, The Author(s).",

year = "2021",

month = jun,

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doi = "10.1038/s43247-021-00204-9",

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AU - Muis, Sanne

AU - Bloemendaal, Nadia

AU - Chertova, Maria V.

AU - Couasnon, Anaïs

AU - Aerts, Jeroen C.J.H.

N1 - Funding Information: We would like to thank Martin Verlaan and Maialen Irazoqui Apecechea from Deltares for their support with the use of GTSM. The authors also acknowledge Arne Arns for sharing his thoughts on the statistical analysis. We would also like to thank Ivan Haigh and Reza Marsooli for providing validation data. We thank Maxime Moge from SURFsara ( http://www.surfsara.nl ) for his support in using the Cartesius Computer Cluster. J.D. received funding from the COASTRISK project financed by the SCOR Corporate Foundation for Science (R/003316.01). S.M. and M.C. received funding from the research program MOSAIC with project number ASDI.2018.036, which is financed by the NWO. N.B. and J.A. are funded by a VICI grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (Grant Number 453-13-006) and the ERC Advanced Grant COASTMOVE #884442. A.C. was supported by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) (VIDI; grant no. 016.161.324). This work was sponsored by NWO Exact and Natural Sciences for the use of supercomputer facilities (grant no. 2020.007). Publisher Copyright: © 2021, The Author(s).

PY - 2021/6/29

Y1 - 2021/6/29

N2 - Storm surges that occur along low-lying, densely populated coastlines can leave devastating societal, economical, and ecological impacts. To protect coastal communities from flooding, return periods of storm tides, defined as the combination of the surge and tide, must be accurately evaluated. Here we present storm tide return periods using a novel integration of two modelling techniques. For surges induced by extratropical cyclones, we use a 38-year time series based on the ERA5 climate reanalysis. For surges induced by tropical cyclones, we use synthetic tropical cyclones from the STORM dataset representing 10,000 years under current climate conditions. Tropical and extratropical cyclone surge levels are probabilistically combined with tidal levels, and return periods are computed empirically. We estimate that 78 million people are exposed to a 1 in 1000-year flood caused by extratropical cyclones, which more than doubles to 192 M people when taking tropical cyclones into account. Our results show that previous studies have underestimated the global exposure to low-probability coastal flooding by 31%.

AB - Storm surges that occur along low-lying, densely populated coastlines can leave devastating societal, economical, and ecological impacts. To protect coastal communities from flooding, return periods of storm tides, defined as the combination of the surge and tide, must be accurately evaluated. Here we present storm tide return periods using a novel integration of two modelling techniques. For surges induced by extratropical cyclones, we use a 38-year time series based on the ERA5 climate reanalysis. For surges induced by tropical cyclones, we use synthetic tropical cyclones from the STORM dataset representing 10,000 years under current climate conditions. Tropical and extratropical cyclone surge levels are probabilistically combined with tidal levels, and return periods are computed empirically. We estimate that 78 million people are exposed to a 1 in 1000-year flood caused by extratropical cyclones, which more than doubles to 192 M people when taking tropical cyclones into account. Our results show that previous studies have underestimated the global exposure to low-probability coastal flooding by 31%.

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ER -

Accounting for tropical cyclones more than doubles the global population exposed to low-probability coastal flooding

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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COAST-RP: A global COastal dAtaset of Storm Tide Return Periods

COAST-RP: A global COastal dAtaset of Storm Tide Return Periods

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Accounting for tropical cyclones more than doubles the global population exposed to low-probability coastal flooding

Abstract

Bibliographical note

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Datasets

COAST-RP: A global COastal dAtaset of Storm Tide Return Periods

COAST-RP: A global COastal dAtaset of Storm Tide Return Periods

Cite this