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Sea-level rise as a result of climate change increases inundation and erosion, which are affected by a complex interplay of physical environmental parameters at the coast. China's coast is vulnerable to accelerated sea-level rise and associated coastal flooding because of physical and socio-economical factors such as its low topography, highly developed economy, and highly dense population. To identify vulnerable sections of the coast, this paper presents a national assessment of the vulnerability of the Chinese coast using 8 physical variables: sea-level rise, coastal geomorphology, elevation, slope, shoreline erosion, land use, mean tide range, and mean wave height. A coastal vulnerability index was calculated by integrating the differentially weighted rank values of the 8 variables, based on which the coastline is segmented into 4 classes. The results show that 3% of the 18,000-km-long Chinese coast is very highly vulnerable, 29% is highly vulnerable, 58% is moderately vulnerable, and 10% is in the low-vulnerable class. Findings further reveal that large amounts of land and population will be vulnerable to inundation by coastal flooding from sea level rise and storm surge. Finally, some suggestions are presented for decision makers and other concerned stakeholders to develop appropriate coastal zone management and mitigation measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary Urban pluvial flood are attracting growing public concern due to rising intense precipitation and increasing consequences. Accurate risk assessment is critical to an efficient urban pluvial flood management, particularly in transportation sector. This paper describes an integrated methodology, which initially makes use of high resolution 2D inundation modeling and flood depth-dependent measure to evaluate the potential impact and risk of pluvial flash flood on road network in the city center of Shanghai, China. Intensity–Duration–Frequency relationships of Shanghai rainstorm and Chicago Design Storm are combined to generate ensemble rainfall scenarios. A hydrodynamic model (FloodMap-HydroInundation2D) is used to simulate overland flow and flood inundation for each scenario. Furthermore, road impact and risk assessment are respectively conducted by a new proposed algorithm and proxy. Results suggest that the flood response is a function of spatio-temporal distribution of precipitation and local characteristics (i.e. drainage and topography), and pluvial flash flood is found to lead to proportionate but nonlinear impact on intra-urban road inundation risk. The approach tested here would provide more detailed flood information for smart management of urban street network and may be applied to other big cities where road flood risk is evolving in the context of climate change and urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a scenario-based study that investigates the interaction between sea-level rise and land subsidence on the storm tides induced fluvial flooding in the Huangpu river floodplain. Two projections of relative sea level rise (RSLR) were presented (2030 and 2050). Water level projections at the gauging stations for different return periods were generated using a simplified algebraic summation of the eustatic sea-level rise, land subsidence and storm tide level. Frequency analysis with relative sea level rise taken into account shows that land subsidence contributes to the majority of the RSLR (between 60 % and 70 %). Furthermore, a 1D/2D coupled flood inundation model (FloodMap) was used to predict the river flow and flood inundation, after calibration using the August 1997 flood event. Numerical simulation with projected RSLR suggests that, the combined impact of eustatic sea-level rise and land subsidence would be a significantly reduced flood return period for a given water level, thus effective degradation of the current flood defences. In the absence of adaptation measures, storm flooding will cause up to 40 % more inundation, particularly in the upstream of the river. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's urban environments are particularly vulnerable to flooding due to climate change and rapid urbanization. Study of the urban flood risk analysis has significantly increased over the past decade, and this paper therefore reviews the main results (i.e. theoretical basis, methods, techniques, case studies) obtained in the literature from China. We focus on the following topics: (1) urban flood hazard analysis, (2) exposure and vulnerability analysis, and (3) urban flood risk assessment. Recent advances made in the research area are presented with suggestions for further research to improve the availability and reliability of urban flood risk analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]