International assessments of the vulnerability.pdf - Climate ...

International assessments of the vulnerability of the coastal zone to climate change, including an Australian perspective
4.1.2 Global vulnerability assessment
Data initially compiled in conjunction with CM assessments fed into the first major
global vulnerability assessment (GVA) undertaken by Hoozemans et al. (1993). This
global summary of vulnerability is an important milestone in assessing the impact of
accelerated sea-level rise. Stimulated by the IPCC CZMS and its CM, it outlined the
socioeconomic and ecological implications of accelerated sea-level rise in terms of
population at risk, wetlands loss, rice production changes and protection costs. The
report, and the datasets that were generated in its support, have had great significance
because they have underpinned a series of the subsequent developments, particularly
SURVAS and DIVA, and, as is discussed in section 5, it set the standard for the types
of metrics that would be used for comparative purposes in assessing vulnerability.
The approach taken in the GVA involved assessment at national level, thus
parameters needed to be determined on a country basis. The GVA was the first
compilation of quantitative information on coastal vulnerability to sea-level rise. The
results of this work have been widely used as the basis for international policy
analysis and in integrated assessments, including IPCC. However, constraints include
obsolete data, a static one-scenario approach to sea-level change as the only driving
variable, and arbitrary assumptions on socio-economic development and adaptation.
Hydraulic regime, for example, a measure of wave energy, is classified as high for the
whole of Australia (Figure 3.2 in Hoozemans et al., 1993), as is protection status
(Figure 3.6 in Hoozemans et al., 1993). Coastal topography was determined on the
basis of ETOPO-5, a rasterised grid of global elevation with approximately 9 km
horizontal and 1 m vertical resolution (with some input from Bureau of Mineral
Resources in Australia, now Geoscience Australia). In many of the analyses Australia
and New Guinea are treated as a region (Pacific large islands). The principal concerns
in this region are recognised to be concerning coastal ecosystems. The Cocos
(Keeling) Islands are listed separately from the rest of Australia, and these are ranked
17 th out of the 50 most vulnerable countries on the basis of people at risk from sealevel
rise (Table 6.11, Hoozemans et al., 1993). Australia contains some of the most
extensive and diverse tropical-temperate coastal environments in the world (in terms
of temperature, wave energy and geomorphological zones). A continental-scale
approach such as GVA is therefore unrepresentative of the diversity within country.
In Australia, the National Coastal Vulnerability Assessment Case Studies Project
(NCVACSP) was undertaken during 1994-95, comprising 9 case studies, one study in
each state, with two in each of Victoria and the Northern Territory. The CM and GVA
led to upscaling elsewhere around the world (this is studies at local scale were
combined to give regional assessments of vulnerability), particularly through the EUfunded
SURVAS project. However, in Australia there was, by contrast, a downscaling
in the effort devoted to vulnerability assessment in Australia (McLean, 2000). The
approaches to determining regional variability in vulnerability adopted elsewhere
have not been applied to the same extent in Australia.
4.2 Vulnerability indices
A number of indices have been developed as rapid and consistent methods for
characterising the relative vulnerability of different coasts. The simplest of these are
Australian Greenhouse Office, Department of the Environment and Heritage, 2006
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