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DATASET

Costs and benefits of coastal adaptation in Europe

Collection: LISCOAST : Large Scale Integrated Sea-level and Coastal Assessment Tool 

Description

Costs and benefits of raising coastal defences along the European coastline in view of climate change

Contact

Email
Michail.VOUSDOUKAS (at) ec.europa.eu

Contributors

How to cite

European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC) (2020): Costs and benefits of coastal adaptation in Europe. European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC) [Dataset] doi: 10.2905/D3163B12-D931-44ED-A609-AF82860A47E0 PID: http://data.europa.eu/89h/d3163b12-d931-44ed-a609-af82860a47e0

Data access

Costs and benefits of coastal adaptation in Europe
Use conditions
Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal 
Access conditions
No limitations 
URL 

Publications

Publication
Economic motivation for raising coastal flood defenses in Europe
Vousdoukas, M., Mentaschi, L., Hinkel, J., Ward, P., Mongelli, I., Ciscar Martinez, J. and Feyen, L., Economic motivation for raising coastal flood defenses in Europe, NATURE COMMUNICATIONS, ISSN 2041-1723 (online), 11, 2020, p. 2119, JRC119139.
  • NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP, LONDON, ENGLAND
DOI
10.1038/s41467-020-15665-3
Publication page 
  • Abstract

    Extreme sea levels (ESLs) in Europe could rise by as much as one metre or more by the end of this century due to climate change. This poses significant challenges to safeguard coastal communities. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of economically efficient protection scenarios along Europe’s coastlines during the present century. We employ a probabilistic framework that integrates dynamic simulations of all ESL components and flood inundation, impact modelling and a cost-benefit analysis of raising dykes. We find that at least 83% of flood damages in Europe could be avoided by elevating dykes in an economically efficient way along 23.7%-32.1% of Europe’s coastline, specifically where high value conurbations exist. The European mean benefit to cost ratio of the investments varies from 8.3 to 14.9 while at country level this ranges between 1.6 and 34.3, with higher efficiencies for a scenario with high-end greenhouse gas emissions and strong socio-economic growth.

Geographic areas

European Union

Temporal coverage

From date To date
2020-01-01 2100-01-01

Additional information

Published by
European Commission, Joint Research Centre
Created date
2020-03-31
Modified date
2020-04-08
Issued date
2020-04-06
Landing page
https://jeodpp.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ftp/jrc-opendata/LISCOAST/CoastalAdaptation/LATEST/ 
Data theme(s)
Economy and finance, Environment
Update frequency
other
Identifier
http://data.europa.eu/89h/d3163b12-d931-44ed-a609-af82860a47e0
Popularity
18 May 2022: 1 visits