On the coastal erosion risk assessment indexes

Abstract

China is one of the most severely affected countries by coastal erosion. About 70% of the sandy beaches and most of muddy tidal flat in open water regions are erode. Coastal erosion results in the width of beach being narrowed, bathing beach destruction, coast-protection facilities and roads collapse, and wetland deterioration. These destructions bring many losses to the local people. However, previous coastal erosion studies focused on the hazard of erosion and paid less attention to the risk of erosion. Therefore, it’s necessary to study the mechanism of coastal erosion and build the coastal erosion risk assessment system for the effective coastal management. On the basis of the existed researches, this paper builds the coastal erosion risk assessment index system which contains hazard index system and vulnerability index system. The index system is expected to provide a practical theoretical basis for coastal erosion risk assessment.