Addressing the Challenge of Flooding Risk Induced by Global Warming: PROTOCOL Project

Global warming associated to climate change is producing a progressively rising of the sea level and changing the magnitude and frequency of the extreme sea level events. Former changes in combination with the increasing concentration of activities, services and will have severe impacts over the worldwide population living on the low elevations coastal zones, including infrastructures, industry, tourism and trade.

Flooding risk associated to global warming constitutes a key challenge to coastal management. This task can only be addresses by a global approach including the joint effects of the multiple concomitant maritime, atmospheric and fluvial drivers, their interactions and the elements of the system such as human interventions and management policies. Although progresses have been made at continental and planetary scale, there is a lack of general methods to quantify the spatial and temporal variability of the local water level caused by simultaneous drivers at detailed scale. Former analysis provides the tools for the assessment of the probability of flooding, the identification of responsible drivers behind extreme flooding events and the definition of coastal protection measures whenever possible, mainly because relocating the activities as a generalizable alternative is not feasible.

This work presents the latest developments of the international project “Protection of Coastal Urban Fronts against Global Warming (PROTOCOL)” (CYTED 917PTE0538, 2017-2020). The methodology of this project is focused on the following aspects: (1) quantification of the drivers and actions considering their different scales of affection and the predicted scenarios (projections) of sea level rise; (2) risk assessment at the coastal urban front (detailed scale); and (3) calculation of the overtopping rates and flooded areas based on the types of protection (including nature-based solutions) and the envisaged scenarios. Five study areas along the Ibero-American coasts have been selected in Spain, Mexico, Portugal and Uruguay to apply the developed methodology, including both estuarine and coastal sites.

The expected impacts of this project explained during the conference should be reflected in: (1) a reduction in investment costs to protect against sea level rise, (2) an update in the scientific-technical methods to meet the protection needs of the coastal urban fronts in the upcoming decades, (3) an improvement in the technological credibility of this process with the society and (4) international and national transfer of this knowledge gaining in competitiveness and competence.