Flood Risks in Sinking Delta Cities: Time for a Reevaluation?

Jie Yin; Sebastiaan Jonkman; Ning Lin; Dapeng Yu; Jeroen Aerts; Robert Wilby; Ming Pan; Eric Wood; Jeremy Bricker; Qian Ke; Zhenzhong Zeng; Qing Zhao; Jianzhong Ge; Jun Wang

doi:10.1029/2020EF001614

Flood Risks in Sinking Delta Cities: Time for a Reevaluation?

Jie Yin^*, Sebastiaan Jonkman, Ning Lin, Dapeng Yu, Jeroen Aerts, Robert Wilby, Ming Pan, Eric Wood, Jeremy Bricker, Qian Ke, Zhenzhong Zeng, Qing Zhao, Jianzhong Ge, Jun Wang

^*Corresponding author for this work

Water and Climate Risk

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

Abstract

Sea level rise (SLR) and subsidence are expected to increase the risk of flooding and reliance on flood defenses for cities built on deltas. Here, we combine reliability analysis with hydrodynamic modeling to quantify the effect of projected relative SLR on dike failures and flood hazards for Shanghai, one of the most exposed delta cities. We find that flood inundation is likely to occur in low-lying and poorly protected periurban/rural areas of the city even under the present-day sea level. However, without adaptation measures, the risk increases by a factor of 3–160 across the densely populated floodplain under projected SLR to 2100. Impacts of frequent flood events are predicted to be more affected by SLR than those with longer return periods. Our results imply that including reliability-based dike failures in flood simulations enables more credible flood risk assessment for global delta cities where conventional methods have assumed either overtopping only or complete failure.

Original language	English
Article number	e2020EF001614
Pages (from-to)	1-15
Number of pages	15
Journal	Earth's Future
Volume	8
Issue number	8
Early online date	3 Aug 2020
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1029/2020EF001614
Publication status	Published - Aug 2020

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant 2018YFC1508803, 2017YFE0100700, 2017YFE0107400), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 41871164, 51761135024), the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant 18ZDA105), the Research Projects of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (Grant 19DZ1201500, 18ZR1410800), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant 2018ECNU‐QKT001, 2017ECNUKXK013), and Institute of Eco‐Chongming (Grant ECNU‐IEC‐202001). N. L. has received funding from the National Science Foundation of the United States (Grant EAR‐1520683). D. P. Y. and R. L. W were funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (Grant NE/R009600/1, NE/S017186/1). B. J., J. B., and Q. K. acknowledged financial support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (Grant ALWSD.2016.007). Q. Z. has performed within the ESA‐MOST Dragon 5 ESA project ID 58351. This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant 2018YFC1508803, 2017YFE0100700, 2017YFE0107400), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant 41871164, 51761135024), the National Social Science Fund of China (Grant 18ZDA105), the Research Projects of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality (Grant 19DZ1201500, 18ZR1410800), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant 2018ECNU-QKT001, 2017ECNUKXK013), and Institute of Eco-Chongming (Grant ECNU-IEC-202001). N. L. has received funding from the National Science Foundation of the United States (Grant EAR-1520683). D. P. Y. and R. L. W were funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (Grant NE/R009600/1, NE/S017186/1). B. J., J. B., and Q. K. acknowledged financial support from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (Grant ALWSD.2016.007). Q. Z. has performed within the ESA-MOST Dragon 5 ESA project ID 58351.

Funders	Funder number
Institute of Eco-Chongming
Institute of Eco‐Chongming	ECNU‐IEC‐202001
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
Research Projects of Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality
National Science Foundation	EAR‐1520683
Ecological Society of America	58351
Natural Environment Research Council	NE/S017186/1, NE/R009600/1
National Natural Science Foundation of China	41871164, 51761135024
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek	ALWSD.2016.007
Science and Technology Commission of Shanghai Municipality	19DZ1201500, 18ZR1410800
National Key Research and Development Program of China	2017YFE0107400, 2018YFC1508803, 2017YFE0100700
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities	2017ECNUKXK013, 2018ECNU‐QKT001
National Office for Philosophy and Social Sciences	18ZDA105

Keywords

delta city
dike failure
flood risk
land subsidence
sea level rise
Shanghai

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1029/2020EF001614

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title = "Flood Risks in Sinking Delta Cities: Time for a Reevaluation?",

abstract = "Sea level rise (SLR) and subsidence are expected to increase the risk of flooding and reliance on flood defenses for cities built on deltas. Here, we combine reliability analysis with hydrodynamic modeling to quantify the effect of projected relative SLR on dike failures and flood hazards for Shanghai, one of the most exposed delta cities. We find that flood inundation is likely to occur in low-lying and poorly protected periurban/rural areas of the city even under the present-day sea level. However, without adaptation measures, the risk increases by a factor of 3–160 across the densely populated floodplain under projected SLR to 2100. Impacts of frequent flood events are predicted to be more affected by SLR than those with longer return periods. Our results imply that including reliability-based dike failures in flood simulations enables more credible flood risk assessment for global delta cities where conventional methods have assumed either overtopping only or complete failure.",

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AU - Yin, Jie

AU - Jonkman, Sebastiaan

AU - Lin, Ning

AU - Yu, Dapeng

AU - Aerts, Jeroen

AU - Wilby, Robert

AU - Pan, Ming

AU - Wood, Eric

AU - Bricker, Jeremy

AU - Ke, Qian

AU - Zeng, Zhenzhong

AU - Zhao, Qing

AU - Ge, Jianzhong

AU - Wang, Jun

PY - 2020/8

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N2 - Sea level rise (SLR) and subsidence are expected to increase the risk of flooding and reliance on flood defenses for cities built on deltas. Here, we combine reliability analysis with hydrodynamic modeling to quantify the effect of projected relative SLR on dike failures and flood hazards for Shanghai, one of the most exposed delta cities. We find that flood inundation is likely to occur in low-lying and poorly protected periurban/rural areas of the city even under the present-day sea level. However, without adaptation measures, the risk increases by a factor of 3–160 across the densely populated floodplain under projected SLR to 2100. Impacts of frequent flood events are predicted to be more affected by SLR than those with longer return periods. Our results imply that including reliability-based dike failures in flood simulations enables more credible flood risk assessment for global delta cities where conventional methods have assumed either overtopping only or complete failure.

AB - Sea level rise (SLR) and subsidence are expected to increase the risk of flooding and reliance on flood defenses for cities built on deltas. Here, we combine reliability analysis with hydrodynamic modeling to quantify the effect of projected relative SLR on dike failures and flood hazards for Shanghai, one of the most exposed delta cities. We find that flood inundation is likely to occur in low-lying and poorly protected periurban/rural areas of the city even under the present-day sea level. However, without adaptation measures, the risk increases by a factor of 3–160 across the densely populated floodplain under projected SLR to 2100. Impacts of frequent flood events are predicted to be more affected by SLR than those with longer return periods. Our results imply that including reliability-based dike failures in flood simulations enables more credible flood risk assessment for global delta cities where conventional methods have assumed either overtopping only or complete failure.

KW - delta city

KW - dike failure

KW - flood risk

KW - land subsidence

KW - sea level rise

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Flood Risks in Sinking Delta Cities: Time for a Reevaluation?

Abstract

Funding

Keywords

UN SDGs

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