Global and Planetary Change 111 (2013) 150158

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Global and Planetary Change

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/gloplacha

A global analysis of erosion of sandy beaches and sea-level rise:

An application of DIVA
Jochen Hinkel a,, Robert J. Nicholls b, Richard S.J. Tol c,d, Zheng B. Wang e,f, Jacqueline M. Hamilton g,
Gerben Boot f, Athanasios T. Vafeidis h, Loraine McFadden i, Andrey Ganopolski j, Richard J.T. Klein k,l
a

Global Climate Forum (GCF), Neue Promenade 6, 10178 Berlin, Germany

Faculty of Engineering, Environment and Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Southampton, Southampton, United Kingdom
Department of Economics, University of Sussex, Falmer, United Kingdom
d
Institute for Environmental Studies, Department of Spatial Economics, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
e
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands
f
Deltares, Delft, The Netherlands
g
Research Unit Sustainability and Global Change, Centre for Marine and Atmospheric Studies, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
h
Institute of Geography, Christian-Albrechts University Kiel, Kiel, Germany
i
Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University, Eneld, United Kingdom
j
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), 14412 Potsdam, Germany
k
Stockholm Environment Institute, Stockholm, Sweden
l
Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research, Department of Thematic Studies, Linkping University, Linkping, Sweden
b
c

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 17 April 2013
Received in revised form 5 September 2013
Accepted 6 September 2013
Available online 20 September 2013
Keywords:
erosion
sandy beaches
beach nourishment
tourism
climate adaptation
climate impacts

a b s t r a c t
This paper presents a rst assessment of the global effects of climate-induced sea-level rise on the erosion of
sandy beaches, and its consequent impacts in the form of land loss and forced migration of people. We consider
direct erosion on open sandy coasts and indirect erosion near selected tidal inlets and estuaries, using six global
mean sea-level scenarios (in the range of 0.20.8 m) and six SRES socio-economic development scenarios for the
21st century. Impacts are assessed both without and with adaptation in the form of shore and beach nourishment, based on cost-benet analysis that includes the benets of maintaining sandy beaches for tourism. Without nourishment, global land loss would amount to about 600017,000 km2 during the 21st century, leading to
1.65.3 million people being forced to migrate and migration costs of US$ 3001000 billion (not discounted).
Optimal beach and shore nourishment would cost about US$ 65220 billion (not discounted) during the 21st
century and would reduce land loss by 814%, forced migration by 5668% and the cost of forced migration by
7784% (not discounted). The global share of erodible coast that is nourished increases from about 4% in 2000
to 1833% in 2100, with beach nourishment being 34 times more frequent than shore nourishment, reecting
the importance of tourism benets. In absolute terms, with or without nourishment, large countries with long
shorelines appear to have the largest costs, but in relative terms, small island states appear most impacted by erosion. Considerable uncertainty remains due to the limited availability of basic coastal geomorphological data and
models on a global scale. Future work should also further explore the effects of beach tourism, including considering sub-national distributions of beach tourists.
2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Sea-level rise and associated extreme water levels will lead to a
range of impacts including temporary ooding, permanent submergence of low lying areas, increased coastal erosion, wetland change
and loss, salinity intrusion into coastal aquifers and the lower reaches
of rivers (Nicholls et al., 2007). Coastal ooding, submergence and erosion are distinct, but related processes (Nicholls, 2010). Flooding and

Corresponding author. Tel.: +49 30 2060738 20; fax: +49 30 2060738 33.
E-mail address: [email protected] (J. Hinkel).
0921-8181/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2013.09.002

submergence relate to rising relative water levels without any change

in absolute elevation, while erosion is a morphodynamic process produced by the removal of sediment, due to waves, currents and other hydrodynamic processes. In this paper, the focus is the erosion of sandy
beaches. Beach erosion can occur at a range of timescales (Stive et al.,
2002, 2009). Individual storms will generally lead to rapid short-term
erosion, followed by rapid short-term accretion and the net change is
often negligible. If sediment deciencies persist, more chronic longterm erosion can result. This paper addresses such chronic long-term
erosion due to sea-level rise.
Long-term erosion of beaches (and other soft coasts) is already a
widespread phenomenon at the regional and global scale (Bird, 1985;

J. Hinkel et al. / Global and Planetary Change 111 (2013) 150158

Nicholls et al., 2007; Eurosion, 2004). The drivers of these changes are
widely debated with a combination of natural erosion trends on some
coasts, exacerbated by a widespread reduction in sediment supply due
to human agency (e.g., Bird, 1985). Historic sea-level rise over the last
100 years (e.g., Church and White, 2011) has also been linked to these
changes (e.g., Vellinga and Leatherman, 1989; Zhang et al., 2004), and
sea-level change is one component altering coastal sediment budget
at all locations. Looking to the future and the likelihood of accelerated
sea-level rise due to human-induced climate change, there is a consensus that this process will exacerbate coastal erosion with adverse physical and socio-economic impacts on the world's beaches and adjoining
coasts (Zhang et al., 2004; Church et al, 2010).
Despite the anticipated exacerbation of coastal erosion due to
sea-level rise, global assessments of sea-level rise impacts have almost
exclusively focused on the impacts of temporary ooding or permanent
submergence of land. As far as we are aware, there is no global analysis
of coastal erosion due to sea-level rise. This paper presents such an
analysis. Its goals are twofold: (1) present methods to evaluate coastal
erosion; and (2) analyse the potential implications of erosion for the
world's coasts over the 21st century under plausible climate and
socio-economic scenarios, including adaptation via nourishment. This
includes the magnitude of land loss and its socio-economic costs and
consequences, adaptation costs, and identifying regions and countries
that appear particularly vulnerable to erosion. The analysis builds on
earlier global assessments of other impacts of sea-level rise such as
coastal ooding and wetland loss (e.g., Hoozemans et al., 1993;
Nicholls, 2004). The method presented was developed and consolidated
as part of the DIVA1 model (DINAS-COAST Consortium, 2006; Hinkel
and Klein, 2009).
The analysis focuses on the average erosion of sandy beaches and the
adjacent land due to sea-level rise. Other coastal erosion such as along
muddy coasts and cliffs is not considered. Further, this analysis only
considers the consequences of sea-level rise. Other erosion processes
on sandy beaches such as alongshore transport, falling sediment budgets due to coastal defences and dams on rivers (e.g. Syvitski et al.,
2009) are not considered. Hence, we only report a component of beach
erosion rather than the total erosion that will occur during the 21st
century due to all drivers.
Erosion of sandy beaches is estimated due to the combination of the
direct effect of prole translation and the indirect effect of tidal inlets,
where appropriate. The direct effect is estimated using the Bruun Rule
to estimate average erosion rates per segment. The Bruun Rule has generated considerable debate in the literature both favourable and
unfavourable (e.g., Cooper and Pilkey, 2004; Zhang et al., 2004). Our
application scale is consistent with the broad scale validation of the concept by Zhang et al. (2004). Zhang et al. (2004) also showed that the
Bruun Rule is problematic in the vicinity of inlets as there are important
indirect erosion effects of sea-level rise (see also Stive, 2004;
Ranasinghe et al., 2012a). For this reason, this indirect effect is also considered and estimated for about 200 major tidal basin complexes using
an adapted version of the ASMITA model (Stive and Wang, 2003).
Hence, we have developed and applied a simple rst-order erosion
model that is applicable on a broad-scale perspective. We see this as a
rst attempt at this type of model. More sophisticated treatments
might be developed in the future following the concepts of Cowell
et al. (2003) and Ranasinghe et al. (2012a,b), but the challenges of
such applications at broad scale should not be underestimated.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows: Section 2
describes the model, data and scenarios, Section 3 presents results,
Section 4 discusses them and Section 5 concludes.

1
DIVA (Dynamic Interactive Vulnerability Assessment) was developed by the DINASCOAST (Dynamic and Interactive Assessment of National, Regional and Global Vulnerability of Coastal Zones to Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise) Consortium.

151

2. Methodology
2.1. The DIVA model and database
DIVA is an integrated, global model of coastal systems that assesses
biophysical and socio-economic consequences of sea-level rise and
socio-economic development taking into account coastal erosion, coastal ooding, wetland change and salinity intrusion (http://www.divamodel.net; DINAS-COAST Consortium, 2006; Hinkel and Klein, 2009).
An important innovation is the explicit incorporation of a range of adaptation options, including beach or shore nourishment as a response to
erosion. The DIVA data model divides the world's coast into 12,148 variable length coastal segments, and associates up to 100 data values with
each segment (Vafeidis et al., 2008). DIVA is driven by climatic and
socio-economic scenarios, comprising temperature (for coastal tourism), sea level, land use, coastal population and GDP. Only the aspects
of DIVA dealing with erosion are considered in this paper.
For the erosion assessment, a number of processes are assessed in
each coastal segment. First we assess potential land loss per segment
in response to sea-level rise as the sum of land loss due to direct and indirect erosion (see below). Then, the socio-economic impacts are considered, including the number of people that are forced to migrate due
to land loss and the associated welfare costs. Finally, adaptation options
are applied according to different strategies.
2.2. Estimating direct erosion due to sea-level rise
For each segment that contains sandy beaches, direct erosion due to
sea-level rise is estimated. Indicative average estimates of the direct erosional effect of sea-level rise on sandy coasts are developed for each
coastal segment following Bruun (1962) see also Mimura and
Nobuoka (1995), Zhang et al. (2004), Ranasinghe and Stive (2009)
and Nicholls (2010). This describes how an equilibrium prole responds
to relative sea-level rise in a two-dimensional sense. The so-called
Bruun Rule considers near-shore slope and material composition (e.g.,
Hands, 1983).

R G  S  l=h

where R is the horizontal recession due to sea-level rise; G is the composition of the eroded material expressed as the reciprocal of fraction of
beach-grade material; S is relative sea-level rise; l is the active prole
width above the depth of closure; and h is the active prole height
above the depth of closure.
As l/h is typically about 100 (e.g., Nicholls, 1998), and in the absence
of appropriate data G is assumed to be 1 (all eroded material is sand),
then Eq. (1) can be simplied to
R 100  S:

Eq. (2) is the form used in DIVA. In coastal segments where sea-level
fall is predicted, no calculations are made.
The value of l/h is uncertain and deviations from 100 will lead to
greater or less retreat depending on the actual nearshore coastal slope
(Ranasinghe and Stive, 2009). If we take the approach of Nicholls et al.
(1995) to evaluate the uncertainty in this value, l/h national average
values range from 110 to 170, 100 to 2100 and 80 to 122 for Senegal,
Argentina and Venezuela, respectively (Nicholls, 1998). Cowell et al.
(2006) recommend a similar approach to evaluate this uncertainty.
However, we do not have the data to estimate l/h around the world's
coasts. Similarly if G N 1 (i.e. not all the material is sand), the recession
rates would be higher than reported here. This effect is counteracted if
the beach is backed by harder less erodible material, in which case erosion would remove the beach and leave a more rocky coastline. Again
we do not have the data to estimate how widely this will occur.

152

J. Hinkel et al. / Global and Planetary Change 111 (2013) 150158

To translate R into the loss of sand volume due to direct erosion

(direct sand loss), the appropriate length and height of the beach are required. The beach length is expressed via the segment length (z) and the
Erosion Factor (Ef), which estimates the proportion of z that is
composed of sandy beaches (Vafeidis et al., 2008). At the global scale,
Ef is difcult to estimate: it is derived from a composite range of data
sources which were combined as explained in Appendix A. In DIVA,
the global shoreline is about 1,000,000 km, while the erodible sandy
shoreline is about 110,000 km or about 11%, compared to other estimates such as Bird (1985) which are 20%. This suggests that DIVA may
be underestimating the length of sandy coast, and hence the scope for
beach erosion. The active prole height (h) is estimated using the tidal
range and wave height classes dened by Davies (1972) as explained
in Appendix B.
Hence the direct potential sand loss per segment (Vd) is estimated
as:

under accelerating sea-level rise and hence the indirect erosion grows
through the 21st century under the scenarios analysed here.
A sample of 200 of the largest (and hence most inuential) tidal
basin complexes around the world's coast was selected and analysed
based on the 2-minute Gridded Global Relief Data (ETOPO2 v1) data
and the Times Atlas of the World (see Appendix C). 54 out of 166 coastal
countries considered have tidal basin complexes. The basic parameters
are the area of the tidal basin and the number of tidal inlets that link
the tidal basin to the neighbouring open sea. The other parameters
that are required to implement ASMITA are taken from the wellstudied Wadden Sea tidal basin in the Netherlands (Van Goor et al.,
2003; Kragtwijk et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2007). Each tidal basin is linked
to its neighbouring coastal segment where any erosion occurs. While
there are only 200 segments with tidal basins complexes, the erosion
in these areas is a large part of the global erosion due to sea-level rise
as discussed in the Results below.

V d z  R  E f  h:

2.4. Socio-economic impacts

2.3. Estimating indirect erosion due to sea-level rise

For segments linked to tidal basins, indirect erosion due to sea-level
rise is also estimated. Tidal basins import sediment under rising sea
levels, as they try to maintain a dynamic equilibrium. This requires a
sediment ux from the nearby open coast into the tidal basin, resulting
in an additional local indirect erosion of the adjacent open coast (Stive,
2004). We compute this indirect erosion based on a simplied version
of the ASMITA2 model (Bijsterbosch, 2003; Stive and Wang, 2003),
designed in a generic form that is applicable globally (see Appendix
C). The ASMITA model applies to an individual tidal basin system,
which is conceptualised into three morphological elements: (1) the
tidal ats in the basin, (2) the channels in the basin and (3) the associated ebb-tidal delta. These three elements can exchange sediment with
each other, and the ebb-tidal delta can also exchange sediment with the
adjoining coasts (the outside world). A basic assumption is that the
system will be in morphological equilibrium if undisturbed (no relative
sea-level change and/or no human interference) for a long time. Then
the volume of each of the three elements is related to the tidal conditions and morphologic characteristics:
Vfe f 1 Ab ; H
Vce f 2 P
Vde f 3 P

where:
Vfe
Vce
Vde
Ab
H
P

Equilibrium (sediment) volume of tidal ats in the basin

Equilibrium (wet) volume of channels in the basin
Equilibrium (sediment) volume of ebb-tidal delta
Area of the tidal basin
Tidal range
Tidal prism

The ASMITA model combines these empirical relations for morphological equilibrium and the formulations for sediment transport processes in order to simulate the changes of the volumes of the three
elements when the system is perturbed by relative sea-level rise. The
resulting model assumes that the basin is in dynamic equilibrium with
the segment-specic rate of relative sea-level rise in the base year.
Under these conditions, the basin has a constant demand for sand
under a constant rate of sea-level rise. The sediment demand grows
2
ASMITA Aggregated Scale Morphological Interaction between a Tidal basin and the
Adjacent coast.

Two main socio-economic impacts of erosion are evaluated: dryland

loss and forced migration of the people living there. Values are attached
to these impacts. All economic costs are in 1995 US dollars.
Dryland loss refers to the loss of habitable land. The dominant land
use class per segment (see Climate and socio-economic scenarios) is
used to value these losses. Generally, this is agricultural or lower value
land classes (e.g., nature areas, forests or tundra). In these cases, it is assumed that should land for more valuable uses such as housing or industry be lost due to erosion, then those activities would relocate
elsewhere at the expense of the dominant agricultural or lower value
land.
The number of people forced to migrate is calculated as the product of the land area eroded and the average population density per
segment that is, we assume that the population is spread evenly
over the area. Following Tol (1995), emigration is valued at three
times per capita income. This is a guesstimate. It is equivalent to the
net present value, using a 5% discount rate, of a 15% wage increase.
Barrett and Goggin (2010) nd a migration wage premium of 7% for returnees to Ireland, Cutilloa and Ceccarellia (2012) a 21% wage premium
for migrants within Italy. A migration value of 300% annual income is
therefore not implausible, but perhaps on the low side as forced migration would be more detrimental to welfare than the voluntary migration observed in the labour literature. Future research should seek
better estimates. The cost of rebuilding houses and infrastructure at different locations is not considered. Erosion due to sea-level rise is a slow
process and the losses can be anticipated (Yohe et al., 1996, 2011). That
is, buildings and infrastructure are fully depreciated before being
swallowed by the sea.
While tourism revenues are considered in the analysis of nourishment decisions (see below), the impact of sea level rise on tourism is
not considered, because DIVA includes only the coastal zone. In order
to assess tourism impacts a tourism model would need data on the interior as well (Hamilton et al, 2005a,b). Furthermore, sea level rise has little impact on coastal tourism because the presence of tourists means
that, in most cases, it is worthwhile to protect the coast (see Bigano
et al., 2008, and below).
2.5. Beach and shore nourishment
DIVA also considers beach and shore nourishment, i.e. the replacement of eroded sand (Dean, 2002). In beach nourishment, the sand is
placed directly on the intertidal beach, while in shore nourishment the
sand is placed below low tide where the sand will progressively feed onshore due to wave action, following current Dutch practice (van
Koningsveld et al., 2008). Based on expert judgement and information
of Deltares, six unit costs for nourishment are considered depending
on the availability of sand and the type of nourishment (Table 1).

J. Hinkel et al. / Global and Planetary Change 111 (2013) 150158

Table 1
Unit nourishment costs in 1995 US dollars.
Erosion factor (Ef)
(and hence inferred
sand supply)

Shore nourishment
(for other beaches)
(US$/m3)

Beach nourishment
(for tourist beaches)
(US$/m3)

N0.5 (sand supply abundant)

0.2 to 0.5
b0.2 (sand supply limited)

3
6
9

6
9
12

Shore nourishment is cheaper than beach nourishment and effective in

slowing erosion, but it is less effective at sustaining the attractiveness
of a beach for tourism, because the benets on the dry beach are not
felt immediately. Secondly, the distance the sand has to be transported
is important and this is inferred using Ef as an index of sediment availability. Nourishment costs are assumed to be universal, as the technology is generic and dredging companies are multinationals. Nourishment
costs are assumed to be constant over time. We also recognise that
shore nourishment may be ineffective or very slow to produce benets
in fetch-limit seas where waves are less effective at moving material onshore under calm conditions due to their short period (e.g. Komar,
1998). We consider this factor via a sensitivity analysis where shore
nourishment is removed as an option in selected fetch limited seas.
Nourishment options may be applied following different adaptation
strategies. In this analysis, two strategies are considered: (1) no nourishment and (2) optimal nourishment based on cost-benet analysis
(CBA) as explained below. In the no nourishment strategy, DIVA computes the impacts as described above.
For optimal nourishment, the benets of nourishment depend on
the damage avoided in terms of land loss, forced migration and tourism.
Because both the costs and benets are assumed to be linear functions
of the amount of nourishment, areas are either fully protected (so that
no damage is done) or not at all. For areas with coastal tourism, beach
nourishment is the preferred adaptation option. It is applied if the combined benets in terms of land loss, migration and tourism are sufcient.
If the costs of beach nourishment cannot be justied by its benets, then
shore nourishment is evaluated to avoid land loss and forced migration.
The level of tourism and tourism revenues are calculated using the
Hamburg Tourism Model (HTM) (version 1), which is an econometric
model of international tourism ows at a national scale (Hamilton
et al., 2005a,b). In HTM, the number of tourists increases with population and income; tourists prefer holidays at a temperature of 25 C.
Hence, as countries become increasingly wealthy and populous the
number of tourists increases, while global warming can change optimum tourist locations. If the warmest month is below 15 C, there is
no beach-related tourism. Above this temperature, the national economic value of coastal tourism is estimated as 16% of HTM's predicted
national tourism revenues, based on the assumptions that 65% of tourists are coastal, and 25% of their expenditure is prot. We assume that

500

10000

5000

coastal tourism is focussed along the sandy beaches in a strip 1 km

wide. As these are national estimates, we cannot resolve sub-national
characteristics of this distribution.
The assessment of the optimal level of nourishment is straight
forward as all the key relationships are linear within each segment:
(1) the marginal benets of nourishment to counteract the total potential erosion estimated above are constant: i.e. for every cubic metre of
additional sand supply, the same additional land area is protected
from erosion; (2) land values are constant (in the area eroded); and
(3) the costs of nourishment are linear in the amount of sand applied,
so that the marginal costs of nourishment are constant. This implies
that optimal nourishment is a corner solution. If the unit cost of nourishment exceeds the marginal benet (i.e., the value of the land area
protected from erosion per cubic metre of sand supplied), then no nourishment occurs in a segment. If the marginal cost is less than the marginal benet, then nourishment will fully offset erosion in a segment.
2.6. Climate and socio-economic scenarios
Eight sets of scenarios based on the IPCC SRES storylines are explored (Nakicenovic and Swart, 2000). The socio-economic component
of the scenarios was derived from the IMAGE 2.2 17-region implementation of the SRES scenarios (IMAGE Team, 2002), since the IMAGE
model has a greater regional breakdown than comparable models, and
includes land-use scenarios. The regional growth rates for population
and GDP are assumed to apply homogeneously to the countries within
the associated region with the exception of GDP for rich countries in
poor regions (namely Hong Kong, Singapore, Macao, Taiwan and several
Caribbean countries). Fig. 1 shows global GDP and population for these
scenarios.
The climate and sea-level rise scenarios were derived with CLIMBER2 a climate model of intermediate complexity (Petoukhov et al.,
2000). For each SRES emission scenario, a low, medium and high
gridded air temperature and global-mean sea-level rise scenario was
produced by assuming the three different climate sensitivities of 1.5 K
(low), 3 K (medium) and 4.5 K (high). Here we focus on the medium
climate sensitivity, with the exception of the A1B storyline where we
consider all three climate sensitivities (Fig. 1). The range of 21st century
global mean sea-level covered by these scenarios is 22 to 80 cm, which
is consistent with the range published in the Fourth Assessment Report
(AR4) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (Meehl et al.,
2007) and thus excludes potential higher contribution of the ice sheets
of Greenland and Antarctica to global mean sea-level rise due to an
acceleration of ice sheet ow (e.g., Rahmstorf, 2007). Due to the slow response of the ocean to global warming, differences between the globalmean sea-level rise scenarios for the same climate sensitivity only become signicant after the middle of the 21st century.
DIVA downscales the climate-induced sea-level rise scenarios by
combining them with segment-level estimates of local vertical land
0.8

A1
A2
B1
B2

Global mean sealevel rise

since 1995 [m]

A1, B1
A2
B2

GDP [trillion US$]

Population [million]

15000

400
300
200
100

153

0.6

A1B_high
A1B_medium
A1B_low
A1FI
A1T
A2
B1
B2

0.4

0.2

0.0

2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Year

Year

Year

Fig. 1. Global population (left), GDP (middle) and mean sea-level rise (right) for the eight scenarios used in this paper.

154

J. Hinkel et al. / Global and Planetary Change 111 (2013) 150158

Land loss cost [million US$/yr]

250

Land loss [km^2/yr]

200

150

100

50

A1B_high+NO
A1B_medium+NO
A1B_low+NO
A1FI+NO
A1T+NO
A2+NO
B1+NO
B2+NO

150

100

50

0
2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Year

Year

Fig. 2. Global annual land loss (left) and global annual cost of land loss (right) due to coastal erosion without nourishment.

3. Results
3.1. Land loss without nourishment
The most immediate impact of erosion is the loss of land. Without
nourishment and assuming medium climate sensitivity, between 112
and 172 km2 land will be lost annually due to erosion in 2100 under
the six SRES sea-level rise scenarios (Fig. 2). Land loss decelerates notably
towards the end of the century in all scenarios but A2 and B2 due to the
linear relationship between the direct erosion recession rate and the rate
of global sea-level rise (Eq. (2)) with the latter rate decreasing towards
the end of the century in all scenarios but A2 and B2. When considering
only low, medium and high A1B sea-level rise scenarios, the range
increases to between 78 and 242 km2 per year in 2100. Hence, the uncertainty about climate sensitivity has a greater effect on the uncertainty
about erosion at the global scale than the uncertainty about socio-

Land loss cost

[million US$/yr]

50

A1B_high+NO
A1B_medium+NO
A1B_low+NO

40
30
20
10
0

0.04

A1B_high+NO
A1B_medium+NO
A1B_low+NO

0.03
0.02
0.01

United States
Japan
Germany
Denmark
Netherlands
Brazil
Qatar
India
France
Maldives
Sri Lanka
Mexico
Bangladesh
Nigeria
China
Australia
Gabon
Canada
Kuwait
Indonesia
Argentina
Ecuador
Morocco
Egypt
Portugal

0.00
Kiribati
Marshall Islands
Tuvalu
Micronesia, Fed Stat
Maldives
French Polynesia
Belize
Vanuatu
Solomon Islands
Tonga
Qatar
Virgin Islands, U.S.
Samoa
Bahamas
GuineaBissau
St. Vincent & Grenad
Denmark
Fiji
Grenada
Mozambique
Nicaragua
Gambia
Sao Tome & Principe
Dominica
New Caledonia

60

economic development and associated emission pathways. The rank

order of land loss attained under the different SRES scenarios follows
the rank order of the corresponding rise in sea level: A1FI is
the highest, and B1 is the lowest. Cumulatively, between 6000 and
17,000 km2 land is projected to be lost over the 21st century under the
scenarios considered here.
The cost of land loss lies between US $59 and $126 million per year
in 2100 across the six medium scenarios, compared to US $63 and
$182 million per year across the three A1B scenarios, respectively
(Fig. 2). The rank order for costs of land loss attained under the different
SRES scenarios differs from the rank order of the rise in sea level, because the unit value of land also varies with SRES scenario (reecting
different socio-economic development).
The ve countries most affected by land loss under A1B medium in
2100 are the United States, Australia, Mexico, Russian Federation and
Brazil. These countries all have a long coastline and a relative high
share of sandy beaches. Four of these countries are amongst the ve
countries ranking highest in terms of their total length of sandy
beaches: Australia (13,200 km), U.S.A. (12,800 km), Brazil (6100 km),
Denmark (4600 km) and Mexico (4900 km). In terms of absolute
costs, the ve countries most affected in 2100 under the A1B medium
scenario are the U.S.A., Japan, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands
(Fig. 3). In terms of relative costs (to national GDP), Kiribati, The
Marshall Islands and Tuvalu are most affected, losing more than 0.01%
of national GDP under the A1B medium scenario in 2100 (Fig. 3).
Globally, indirect erosion accounts for about 7073% of total erosion
at the beginning of the century under all scenarios without nourishment
and falls to 5064% by the end of the century. The share of direct erosion
increases over the century because direct erosion is linear in sea-level

Land loss cost

[percentage of GDP]

movement based on glacial isostatic adjustment (Vafeidis et al., 2008).

Additionally, where segments occupy deltas, we assumed, based on expert judgement, an additional 2 mm/year subsidence due to natural
sediment compaction. The resulting relative sea-level rise is lower
than the global average for some uplifting regions such as Fennoscandia
and higher than the global average in subsiding deltas. Human-induced
subsidence may be much greater on susceptible coasts, most especially
in deltas (e.g., Nicholls, 2010), but this is not considered in DIVA due to a
lack of consistent information.
Each set of scenarios is run without nourishment (symbolized
as + NO) and with optimal (cost-benet) nourishment (symbolized
as + CBA) as described above.

Fig. 3. Annual cost of land loss for the 25 most affected countries in absolute terms (left) and relative to GDP (right) in 2100 for the A1B scenario with low, medium and high sea-level rise
and without nourishment.

J. Hinkel et al. / Global and Planetary Change 111 (2013) 150158

Migration cost [million US$/yr]

People forced to migrate

[thousands/yr]

70
60
50
40
30
20
10

155

A1B_high+NO
A1B_medium+NO
A1B_low+NO
A1FI+NO
A1T+NO
A2+NO
B1+NO
B2+NO

20000

15000

10000

5000

0
2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Year

Year

Fig. 4. Global annual number of people forced to migrate due to coastal erosion (left) and global annual cost of forced migration (right) without nourishment.

3.2. Forced migration without nourishment

The second major impact of erosion is forced displacement of the
residents living on the eroded land. Without nourishment, about
25,000 to 70,000 people per year are expected to be forced to migrate
in 2100 across the six medium SRES scenarios, compared with 19,000
to 64,000 people per year under the low, medium and high A1B scenarios (Fig. 4). Across the SRES scenarios, the highest impacts are under the
A2 scenario, reecting that this has the largest population and one of
the highest rises in sea level (Fig. 1). Cumulatively, between 1.6 and
5.3 million people are forced to migrate due to increased erosion in
the 21st century across all the scenarios.
The cost of forced migration is about two orders of magnitude higher
than the cost of land loss (Fig. 4). Cumulatively, forced migration is
expected to cost between US$ 300 and 1000 billion for the scenarios
considered here. For the medium sea-level rise scenarios, costs are
highest under the A1FI scenario as people are much wealthier than in
an A2 world. The countries with the highest migration costs in 2100
under the A1B medium scenario are the U.S., Japan and The Maldives,
with the costs in the U.S.A. being about half the global cost (Fig. 5). In
terms of cost relative to national GDP, the Maldives, the Marshall

8000

A1B_high+NO
A1B_medium+NO
A1B_low+NO

6000
4000
2000

3.3. Impacts with nourishment

If we apply nourishment following the CBA approach, impacts are
increasingly reduced during the 21st century, reecting that the benet
of nourishment increases with increasing land values due to socioeconomic development (Fig. 6). The socio-economic benets in terms
of avoided forced migration and avoided costs are much larger than
the pure physical benets, reecting the cost-benet approach taken
and that much of the coastal population is concentrated in a few places
(Small and Nicholls, 2003). Cumulatively over the 21st century, CBA reduces land loss by 814%, cost of land loss by 3952% (not discounted),
forced migration by 5668% and the cost of forced migration by 7784%
(not discounted). This illustrates the CBA mechanism: valuable land is
disproportionally protected, and wealthy people are preferentially
protected. The lowest reductions are under the B2 scenario reecting
the low GDP growth and moderate increase in population exposure.
In 2100, global annual nourishment costs are estimated to be US $1.4
to $5.3 billion per year across the low, mid and high A1B scenarios and
US$ 1.4 to 3.2 billion per year across the mid SRES scenarios. The
undiscounted cumulative costs for the 21st century lies between US$
64 and 221 billion for the scenarios considered here. Costs are lowest
under B2 and A2 and highest under A1. On a country level for the A1B
medium scenario, nourishment costs in 2100 are highest in absolute
terms for the U.S.A., Japan, Qatar, the Netherlands and China at above
US$ 0.1 billion per year per country. In relative terms (to GDP), Qatar

1.5

A1B_high+NO
A1B_medium+NO
A1B_low+NO

1.0

0.5

0.0
United States
Japan
Maldives
Netherlands
Qatar
India
Portugal
Germany
Denmark
Brazil
Gabon
France
Nigeria
Kuwait
Egypt
Cote d Ivoire
Sri Lanka
Bangladesh
Morocco
China
Bahamas
Libyan Arab Jamahiri
South Africa
Russian Federation
Thailand

Maldives
Marshall Islands
Kiribati
Tuvalu
Qatar
Micronesia, Fed Stat
Bahamas
Portugal
French Polynesia
Belize
Virgin Islands, U.S.
Gambia
Denmark
Grenada
St. Kitts and Nevis
Seychelles
Gabon
GuineaBissau
Ecuador
Tonga
Netherlands
St. Vincent & Grenad
Antigua and Barbuda
Kuwait
New Zealand

Migration cost
[million US$/yr]

10000

Islands and Kiribati rank highest with around 0.5% of national GDP in
2100 required for population relocation under the A1B medium
scenario.

Migration cost
[percentage of GDP]

rise and hence directly reacts to the accelerating rates of sea-level rise,
whereas indirect erosion reacts with a delay, because the tidal basin systems only gradually adjust towards new dynamic equilibria when sealevel accelerates. On a country level, the share of total land loss caused
by indirect erosion is logically high for those countries that have tidal
basins. In 2100 and under A1B medium, this shares lies above 90% for
Qatar, Cameroon, Belize, Romania, Panama, Oman, Angola; Costa Rica,
Canada and Ecuador.

Fig. 5. Annual cost of forced migration for the 25 most affected countries in absolute terms (left) and relative to GDP (right) in 2100 for the A1B scenario with low, medium and high sealevel rise and without nourishment.

80
60

A1B_high
A1B_medium
A1B_low
A1FI
A1T
A2
B1
B2

40
20
0
2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

100

Nourishment cost [million US$/yr]

100

Reduction in migration cost [%/yr]

J. Hinkel et al. / Global and Planetary Change 111 (2013) 150158

Reduction in land loss cost [%/yr]

156

80
60
40
20
0

A1B_high
A1B_medium
A1B_low
A1FI
A1T
A2
B1
B2

2020

2040

Year

2060

Year

2080

2100

5000
4000

A1B_high+CBA
A1B+CBA
A1B_low+CBA
A1FI+CBA
A1T+CBA
A2+CBA
B1+CBA
B2+CBA

3000
2000
1000
0
2000 2020 2040 2060 2080 2100

Year

Fig. 6. Reduction in global annual land loss cost (left) and migration cost (middle) through optimal nourishment and associated nourishment cost (right).

(0.06% of GDP), The Maldives (0.04% of GDP), the Virgin Islands (0.03%
of GDP) and Ecuador (0.02% of GDP) have the highest national costs.
The change in tourist arrivals affects these results in two ways.
Climate change pushes the border where beach tourism is attractive further north and the number of segments where tourists are present increases. Second, socio-economic development increases the number of
tourist arrivals and the revenues attained from tourism. Under the
CBA strategy, this leads to an increasing number of segments receiving
nourishment.
The global share of erodible coast that is nourished increases from
about 3% in 2000 to 1833% in 2100 under all scenarios. The lowest
share nourished in 2100 is under the A2 and B2 scenarios, again
reecting the lower land values and hence lower benets of protection
under these low-income scenarios. In 2000, this share is split equally between beach and shore nourishment, whereas in 2100 the share of
beach nourishment is 34 times that of shore nourishment. This illustrates the importance of taking into account tourism benets in the
nourishment decision.
The effect of excluding shore nourishment in potentially fetchlimited seas is relatively small. In a sensitivity analysis, we exuded
shore nourishment in the Baltic Sea, Red Sea, Mediterranean, Black
Sea, Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico, Persian Gulf, Sea of Japan, Java Sea and
Banda Sea. This lead to nourishment not being cost efcient any more
in some coastal segments, which increased cumulative land loss by
about 1%, cumulative migration by about 4% and decreased cumulated
(not discounted) nourishment costs by about 4% for the A1B medium
scenario and the 21st century. The effect is relatively small because in
many of those regions tourists are present and beach nourishment is applied in any case.
4. Discussion
A range of physical impacts and economic costs have been estimated
using two simple erosion formulations coupled to an adaptation costbenet model, providing, for the rst time, indicative results of global aggregate impacts of sea-level rise on the erosion of sandy beaches and adaptation needs. Absolute costs appear large, but in relation to the
national economies of the most threatened countries (such as U.S.A.),
they are relatively small and manageable. However, they do indicate
strategic challenges that coastal management will need to address over
the next century. In relative terms, small island nations appear particularly vulnerable to erosion as the costs are large relative to their national
economies. Hence, this work reinforces the conclusion in earlier analyses
that these are amongst the most vulnerable nations to sea-level rise (cf.
Hoozemans et al., 1993; Nicholls, 2004; Nicholls and Tol, 2006). This
analysis did not consider global mean sea-level rises beyond the range
given in AR4 that could result from an accelerated contribution of the
ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica. Future work needs to do this.

Given that direct erosion is linear in sea-level rise we would expect no

great surprise in terms of direct physical impacts (i.e. land lost), but in
terms of socio-economic impacts the interplay between local socioeconomic development, tourism and local relative sea-level would
need to be investigated further.
The limitations of the analysis also need to be appreciated and include the following issues. The description of erosion processes through
the Bruun Rule is limited and controversial (e.g., Cooper and Pilkey,
2004; Pilkey and Cooper, 2004; Stive, 2004). The Bruun Rule has rightfully been rejected as a predictive model to be used for planning and
management at local scales (Pilkey and Cooper, 2004). One basic and
unrealistic assumption underlying the Bruun Rule is the absence of
alongshore sediment transport. A further limitation of the Bruun Rule
is the difculty to estimate the depth of closure due to a lack of data
(e.g., Ranasinghe and Stive, 2009). On the other hand, there are also arguments that can be made in favour of applying the Bruun Rule for a
global scale analysis. While local estimates of land loss may be incomplete because they miss important components of the sediment budget
(e.g., alongshore sediment transport), global estimates are expected to
be more accurate because they average across large areas. Zhang et al.
(2004), for example, nd agreement between the Bruun rule and observed erosion trends for the U.S. East Coast. Furthermore, a global assessment needs to apply stylized models such as the Bruun rule, as
complex morphodynamic models cannot be applied at broad continental and global scales.
Further limitations include that the underlying data on the world's
coast is limited and the difculty in dening the location of the sandy
shorelines of interest to this study. As well as continuous sandy beaches,
pocket beaches need to be considered, as these are often important for
tourism. This raises questions on the extent of erosion, which has
been considered unlimited in this analysis. The extent of erosion is, for
example, often limited in many coastal situations such as on barrier
islands (e.g., US East Coast), or where a beach is backed by rocks,
while DIVA assumes erosion can continue indenitely. The scope for migration within national borders may also be limited, in particular for
Small Island states and densely populated countries.
Future work may improve the current analysis in several directions.
One major innovation of this paper is the inclusion of adaptation and
tourism in the assessment of coastal erosion due to sea-level rise. The
treatment of tourism, however, is generalized to a national scale and
this may be further developed on sub-national scales (as in Hamilton
and Tol, 2007). The cost-benet analysis could be improved by taking
into account the interactions with other impacts such as coastal ooding
and the consideration of defence benets of nourishment. More analysis
of the costs of beach nourishment could also be included, as higher
nourishment costs would reduce the extent of nourishment. The resolution of the coast-line could be improved for geographic regions for
which better data is available and additional tidal basin systems could

J. Hinkel et al. / Global and Planetary Change 111 (2013) 150158

be included as a great share of erosion is indirect erosion. Finally, data

can be improved, especially on inlets and distribution of sandy beaches.
This might include a more focussed analysis on areas with the best data
such as the USA or Europe which would help to improve the analysis
methods and to understand to what extend better data could improve
the analysis. Hence there is signicant scope for improvement which
the authors are pursuing, and what is presented should be considered
as interim results that illustrate a workable methodology for this type
of analysis.
5. Conclusions
This paper assesses the global effects of climate-induced sea-level
rise and erosion of sandy beaches, including possible nourishment responses. It has been developed as a component of the DIVA (Dynamic
Interactive Vulnerability Assessment) Model of coastal impacts and adaptation. It considers both direct erosion effects on open sandy coasts
and indirect erosion effects near selected tidal basins and estuaries,
the potential socio-economic implications of the resulting land loss,
and the potential for adaptation using nourishment, including a consideration of the economic value of coastal tourism.
Across the SRES scenarios considered, large areas of land could be lost
if there is no adaptation. Cumulatively over the 21st century about 6000
17,000 km2 land area may be lost across the globe due to sea-level rise
induced erosion, leading to 1.65.3 million people being forced to migrate with an associated migration costs of US$ 3001000 billion (not
discounted). Optimal beach and shore nourishment based on costbenet analysis would cost about US$ 65220 billion (not discounted)
during the 21st century and would reduce land loss by 814%, cost of
land loss by 3952% (not discounted), forced migration by 5668% and
the cost of forced migration by 7784% (not discounted) under the scenarios considered here. In absolute terms, with or without nourishment,
large countries with long shorelines appear to have the largest costs, but
in relative terms, small islands appear most threatened by erosion.
These results contribute to the ongoing attempts to quantify the impacts of climate change on a global level and they add estimates for one
impact that has so far not been quantied globally. The results may also
be used for comparison between different world regions and nations
(e.g., Nicholls, 2010), but not for coastal management analyses where
more complex morphodynamic methods are necessary (e.g., Dickson
et al., 2007; Nicholls et al., 2011). The analysis also shows the need for
improved basic coastal geomorphic data at a global scale. We hope
that this paper will stimulate more attention on acquiring the underlying data which can be improved signicantly and further algorithm
development in terms of physical changes, adaptation responses and
socio-economic processes such as tourism.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by the European Commission's Fifth Framework Programme through the DINAS-COAST project (EVK2-200022024) and 7th Framework Programme through the ClimateCost Project
(grant agreement 212774). We thank two anonymous reviewers for
their very helpful and constructive comments.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at http://dx.
doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2013.09.002.
References
Barrett, A., Goggin, J., 2010. Returning to the question of a wage premium for returning
migrants. Natl. Inst. Econ. Rev. 213, R43.

157

Bigano, A., Bosello, F., Roson, R., Tol, R.S.J., 2008. Economy-wide impacts of climate
change: a joint analysis for sea level rise and tourism. Mitig. Adapt. Strateg. Glob.
Chang. 13 (8), 765791.
Bijsterbosch, L.W.W., 2003. Inuence of relative sea level rise on tidal inlets. MSc. Thesis
Delft Hydraulics.Delft University of Technology (March 2003).
Bird, E.C.F., 1985. Coastline Changes: A Global Review. John Wiley and Sons, Chichester
(219 pp.).
Bruun, P., 1962. Sea-level rise as a cause of shore erosion. J. Waterw. Harb. Div. Proc. Am.
Soc. Civ. Eng. 88.
Church, J.A., White, N.J., 2011. Sea-level rise from the late 19th to the early 21st century.
Surv. Geophys. 32 (4), 585602.
Church, J.A., Aarup, T., Woodworth, P.L., Wilson, W.S., Nicholls, R.J., Rayner, R., Lambeck, K.,
Mitchum, G.T., Steffen, K., Cazenave, A., Blewitt, G., Mitrovica, J.X., Lowe, J.A., 2010.
Sea-level rise and variability: synthesis and outlook for the future. In: Church, J.A.,
Woodworth, P.L., Aarup, T., Wilson, W.S. (Eds.), Understanding Sea-Level Rise and
Variability. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, GB, pp. 402419.
Cooper, J.A.G., Pilkey, O.H., 2004. Sea-level rise and shoreline retreat: time to abandon the
Bruun Rule. Glob. Planet. Chang. 43 (34), 157171.
Cowell, P.J., Stive, M.J.F., Niederoda, A.W., de Vriend, H.J., Swift, D.J.P., Kaminsky, G.M.,
Capobianco, M., 2003. The coastal-tract (part 1): a conceptual approach to aggregated
modelling of low-order coastal change. J. Coast. Res. 19 (4), 812827.
Cowell, P.J., Thom, B.G., Jones, R.A., Everts, C.H., Simanovic, D., 2006. Management of
uncertainty in predicting climate-change impacts on beaches. J. Coast. Res. 22 (1),
232245.
Cutilloa, A., Ceccarellia, C., 2012. The internal relocation premium: are migrants positively
or negatively selected? Evidence from Italy. J. Appl. Stat. 39 (6), 12631278.
Davies, J.L., 1972. Geographical Variation in Coastal Development. Longman, New York,
U.S.A.(204 pp.).
Dean, R.G., 2002. Beach Nourishment: Theory and Practise. World Scientic, Singapore
(376 pp.).
Dickson, M.E., Walkden, M.J.A., Hall, J.W., 2007. Modelling the impacts of climatic change
on an eroding coast over the 21st century. Clim. Change 84 (2), 41166.
DINAS-COAST Consortium, 2006. DIVA. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research,
Potsdam, Germany (CD-ROM).
Eurosion, 2004. Living with coastal erosion in Europe: sediment and space for sustainability. Part-1 Major Findings and Policy Recommendations of the EUROSION Project.
Directorate General Environment European Commission (54 pp.).
Hamilton, J.M., Tol, R.S.J., 2007. The impact of climate change on tourism in Germany, the
UK, and Ireland: a simulation study. Reg. Environ. Chang. 7 (3), 161172.
Hamilton, J.M., Maddison, D.J., Tol, R.S.J., 2005a. Climate change and international tourism:
a simulation study. Global Environ. Change 15 (3), 253266.
Hamilton, J.M., Maddison, D.J., Tol, R.S.J., 2005b. The effects of climate change on international tourism. Clim. Res. 29, 255268.
Hands, E., 1983. Erosion of the Great lakes due to changes in the water level. In: Komar,
P.D. (Ed.), CRC Handbook of Coastal Processes and Erosion. CRC Press, pp. 167189.
Hinkel, J., Klein, R.J.T., 2009. Integrating knowledge to assess coastal vulnerability to sealevel rise: the development of the DIVA tool. Glob. Environ. Chang. 19 (3), 384395.
Hoozemans, F.M.J., Marchand, M., Pennekamp, H.A., 1993. A Global Vulnerability Analysis:
Vulnerability Assessment for Population, Coastal Wetlands and Rise Production on a
Global Scale, 2nd edition. Delft Hydraulics, the Netherlands.
Komar, P.D., 1998. Beach Processes and Sedimentation, 2nd edition. Prentice-Hall,
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
Kragtwijk, N.G., Zitman, T.J., Stive, M.J.F., Wang, Z.B., 2004. Morphological response of tidal
basins to human interventions. Coast. Eng. 51, 207221.
Meehl, G.A., Stocker, T.F., Collins, W.D., Friedlingstein, P., Gaye, A.T., Gregory, J.M., Kitoh, A.,
Knutti, R., Murphy, J.M., Noda, A., Raper, S.C.B., Watterson, I.G., Weaver, A.J., Zhao,
Z.-C., 2007. Global climate projections. In: Solomon, S., Qin, D., Manning, M., Chen,
Z., Marquis, M., Averyt, K.B., Tignor, M., Miller, H.L. (Eds.), Climate Change 2007:
The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment
Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 747846.
Mimura, N., Nobuoka, H., 1995. Verication of the Bruun rule for the estimation of shoreline retreat caused by sea-level rise. Proceedings of Coastal Dynamics 1995. ASCE,
pp. 607616.
Nakicenovic, N., Swart, R., 2000. Emissions scenarios. Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press (599 pp.).
Nicholls, R.J., 1998. Assessing erosion of sandy beaches due to sea-level rise. In: Maund,
J.G., Eddleston, M. (Eds.), Geohazards in Engineering Geology. Engineering Geology
Special Publications, 15. Geological Society, London, pp. 7176.
Nicholls, R.J., 2004. Coastal ooding and wetland loss in the 21st Century: changes under
the SRES climate and socio-economic scenarios. Glob. Environ. Chang. 14, 6986.
Nicholls, R.J., Wong, P.P., Burket, V.R., Codignotto, J., Hay, J.E., McLean, R.F., Ragoonaden,
S., Woodroffe, C.D., 2007. Coastal systems and low-lying areas. In: Parry, M.L., Canziani,
O.F., Palutikof, J.P., van der Linden, P.J., Hanson, C.E. (Eds.), Climate Change 2007:
Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK,
pp. 315356.
Nicholls, R.J., 2010. Impacts of and responses to sea-level rise. In: Church, J.A.,
Woodworth, P.L., Aarup, T., Wilson, S. (Eds.), Understanding Sea-level Rise and
Variability. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester, UK, pp. 1751.
Nicholls, R.J., Tol, R.S.J., 2006. Impacts and responses to sea-level rise: a global analysis of
the SRES scenarios over the twenty-rst century. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. A 364,
10731095.
Nicholls, R.J., Leatherman, S.P., Dennis, K.C., Volonte, C.R., 1995. Impacts and responses to sealevel rise: qualitative and quantitative assessments. J. Coast. Res. Spec. Issue 14, 2643.
Nicholls, R.J., Wong, P.P., Burkett, V.R., Codignotto, J.O., Hay, J.E., McLean, R.F., Ragoonaden,
S., Woodroffe, C.D., 2007. In: Parry, M.L., Canziani, O.F., Palutikof, J.P., van der Linden,

158

J. Hinkel et al. / Global and Planetary Change 111 (2013) 150158

P.J., Hanson, C.E. (Eds.), Coastal systems and low-lying areas Climate Change 2007:
Impacts and Adaptation and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the
Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Cambridge University Press, pp. 315356.
Nicholls, R., Hinkel, J., Tol, R., Boot, G., Vafeidis, A., McFadden, L., 2011. A global analysis of
coastal erosion of beaches due to sea-level rise: an application of DIVA. Proceedings of
Coastal Sediments, Miami, Florida. World Scientic, Singapore.
Petoukhov, V., Ganopolski, A., Brovkin, V., Claussen, M., Eliseev, A., Kubatzki, C.,
Rahmstorf, S., 2000. CLIMBER-2: a climate system model of intermediate complexity. Part I: model description and performance for present climate. Clim.
Dyn. 16 (1), 117.
Pilkey, O., Cooper, J., 2004. Society and sea level rise. Science 303 (5665), 1781.
Rahmstorf, S., 2007. A semi-empirical approach to projecting future sea-level rise. Science
315 (5810), 368370.
Ranasinghe, R., Stive, M.J.F., 2009. Rising seas and retreating coastlines. Clim. Change
97 (3), 465468.
Ranasinghe, R., Callaghan, D., Stive, M.J., 2012. Estimating coastal recession due to sea
level rise: beyond the Bruun rule. Clim. Change 110 (3), 561574.
Ranasinghe, R., Duong, T.M., Uhlenbrook, S., Roelvink, D., Stive, M., 2013. Climate-change
impact assessment for inlet-interrupted coastlines. Nat. Clim. Change 3, 8387.
Small, C., Nicholls, R.J., 2003. A global analysis of human settlement in coastal zones.
J. Coast. Res. 19 (3), 584599.
Stive, M.J.F., 2004. How important is global warming for coastal erosion? Clim. Change 64,
2739.
Stive, M.J.F., Wang, Z.B., 2003. Morphodynamic modelling of tidal basins and coastal inlets. In: Lakkhan, C. (Ed.), Advances in Coastal Modelling. Elsvier Sciences,
pp. 367392.
Stive, M.J.F., Aarninkhof, Stefan G.J., Hamm, Luc, Hanson, Hans, Larson, Magnus, Wijnberg,
Kathelijne M., Nicholls, Robert J., Capobianco, Michele, 2002. Variability of shore and
shoreline evolution. Coast. Eng. 47 (2), 211235.

Stive, M.J.F., Cowell, P., Nicholls, R.J., 2009. Beaches, cliffs and deltas. In: Slaymaker, O.,
Spencer, T., Embleton-Hamann, C. (Eds.), Geomorphology and Global Environmental
Change. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, pp. 158179.
Syvitski, J.P.M., Kettner, A.J., Overeem, I., Hutton, E.W.H., Hannon, M.T., Brakenridge, G.R.,
Day, J., Vrsmarty, C., Saito, Y., Giosan, L., Nicholls, R.J., 2009. Sinking Deltas. Nat.
Geosci. 2, 681689.
IMAGE Team, 2002. The IMAGE 2.2 implementation of the SRES scenarios. RIVM Rapport
481508018, CD-ROM.RIVM, Bilthoven, the Netherlands.
Tol, R.S.J., 1995. The damage costs of climate change: toward more comprehensive calculations. Environ. Resour. Econ. 5, 353374.
Vafeidis, A.T., Nicholls, R.J., McFadden, L., Tol, R.S.J., Hinkel, J., Spencer, T., Grashoff, P.S.,
Boot, G., Klein, R.J.T., 2008. A new global coastal database for impact and vulnerability
analysis to sea-level rise. J. Coast. Res. 24, 917924.
Van Goor, M.A., Zitman, T.J., Wang, Z.B., Stive, M.J.F., 2003. Impact of sea level rise on the
morphological stability of tidal inlets. Mar. Geol. 202 (34), 211227.
Van Koningsveld, M., Mulder, J.P.M., Stive, M.J.F., Van Der Valk, L., Van Der Weck, A.W.,
2008. Living with sea-level rise and climate change: a case study of the Netherlands.
J. Coast. Res. 24, 367379.
Vellinga, P., Leatherman, S.P., 1989. Sea level rise, consequences and policies. Clim. Change
15, 175189.
Wang, Z.B., de Vriend, H.J., Stive, M.J.F., Townend, I.H., 2007. On the parameter setting
of semi-empirical long-term morphological models for estuaries and tidal lagoons.
River, Coastal and Estuarine Morphodynamics. Taylor & Francis, London, pp. 103111.
Yohe, G., Neumann, J., Marshall, P., Ameden, H., 1996. The economic cost of greenhouseinduced sea-level rise for developed property in the United States. Clim. Change 32
(4), 387410.
Yohe, G., Knee, K., Kirshen, P., 2011. On the economics of coastal adaptation solutions in
an uncertain world. Clim. Change 106 (1), 7192.
Zhang, K., Douglas, B., Leatherman, S., 2004. Global warming and coastal erosion. Clim.
Change 64, 4158.