2018/10/03 by Lena Reimann, Athanasios T. Vafeidis, Sally Brown +2 · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Environmental Science · #Maritime and Coastal Archaeology #Coastal wetland ecosystem dynamics #Conservation Techniques and Studies #Flooding (psychology) #Flood myth #Coastal erosion #Mediterranean climate #Coastal flood #Sea level rise #Geography #Mediterranean sea #Natural hazard #Coastal hazards #Climate change #Erosion #Environmental resource management #Environmental science #Oceanography #Geology #Archaeology #Meteorology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41467-018-06645-9
openalex publication_date 2018/10/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
UNESCO World Heritage sites (WHS) located in coastal areas are increasingly at risk from coastal hazards due to sea-level rise. In this study, we assess Mediterranean cultural WHS at risk from coastal flooding and erosion under four sea-level rise scenarios until 2100. Based on the analysis of spatially explicit WHS data, we develop an index-based approach that allows for ranking WHS at risk from both coastal hazards. Here we show that of 49 cultural WHS located in low-lying coastal areas of the Mediterranean, 37 are at risk from a 100-year flood and 42 from coastal erosion, already today. Until 2100, flood risk may increase by 50% and erosion risk by 13% across the region, with considerably higher increases at individual WHS. Our results provide a first-order assessment of where adaptation is most urgently needed and can support policymakers in steering local-scale research to devise suitable adaptation strategies for each WHS.