Coastal settlement patterns and exposure to sea-level rise in the Jaffna Peninsula, Sri Lanka
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Coastal settlement patterns and exposure to sea-level rise in the Jaffna Peninsula, Sri Lanka Tharani Gopalakrishnan 1
& Lalit
Kumar 1 & Md Kamrul Hasan 1,2
# Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The Jaffna Peninsula in Sri Lanka has a generally flat topography with a median elevation of 2.72 m, and thus faces a high risk from sea-level rise that has the potential to have adverse impacts on the livelihoods of coastal communities. Understanding these risks and identifying the regions that could be adversely impacted is critical for planning future settlements and developing preventative protocols where possible. The aim of this study was to analyze the exposure of coastal settlements of the Jaffna Peninsula to climate risks, particularly to sea-level rise, and to identify the areas that are likely to be impacted under different sea-level rise scenarios. Raster-based sea-level rise modeling was performed with a digital elevation model produced with topographic contours and spot heights. The spatial distribution of individual residential houses for the entire Jaffna Peninsula was obtained through manual digitization using virtual globe platforms and high-resolution satellite images, and the houses exposed to inundation under various Representative Concentration Pathways from 2025 to 2100 were identified. The results showed that a majority (55.5%) of the residential buildings in the Jaffna Peninsula are located within 3 m above sea level. Approximately 5554 (5.6%) of the houses were projected to be inundated by 2100, and this projection increased to approximately 25,074 (25.4%) under high tide scenarios. This study highlights the coastal communities with a high level of exposure to coastal inundation where adaptation planning is essential. These results provide insights for coastal managers and policy makers for future planning of new settlements and urban expansion. Keywords Coastal settlements . Sea-level rise . Climate change . Inundation modeling
Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-02000350-w) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
* Tharani Gopalakrishnan [email protected] Extended author information available on the last page of the article
Population and Environment
Introduction Climate change and its related impacts have greater consequences for coastal settlements than for inland communities. Accelerated rise in sea levels, increased frequency and intensity of tidal storms, and river flooding are likely to exacerbate coastal communities’ exposure to coastal hazards (Church et al. 2013; Hauer et al. 2015). The coastline is generally the frontier of natural and anthropogenic sea-borne disasters (Fischer, 2018). Nevertheless, coastal areas are more densely populated than inland areas, and generally exhibit a higher rate of population growth (Hinkel et al. 2014; Neumann et al. 2015). According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, by the end of this century, the global mean sea le
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