Abstract
The coastal zones are one of the most productive ecosystems in the world, rich in resources, supporting livelihoods and driving economies. The thickly populated coastal stretches of Kerala are grappling with multiple threats in the form of coastal hazards such as sea level rise, high waves, coastal erosion, and coastal flooding. To address these threats, a comprehensive multi-risk approach is adopted based on the Fifth and Sixth Assessment Reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in which risk is conceived as a function of hazard, vulnerability, and exposure. The study assesses and map the risks associated with coastal hazards on the central coast of Kerala by developing a composite disaster risk index that integrates physical, and socioeconomic variables specific to the study area. Under the hazard component, indicators such as sea level rise, precipitation intensity, shoreline change rate, proximity to cyclone tracks, storm surge height, and frequency of sea surges are considered. Vulnerability indicators encompass population density and land use/land cover, while exposure indicators include elevation, slope, mean significant wave height, and drainage density. The risk assessment indicates varying levels of risk across the study area, with 2% coming under very high risk zone, 6% under high risk zone, 21% under medium risk zone, 43% under low risk, and 28% under very low risk. These findings help coastal planners and managers with effective disaster management and adaptation strategies.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Data availability
The datasets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
References
Adger WN, Brown I, Surminski S (2018) Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy. Philosophical Trans Royal Soc A: Math Phys Eng Sci 376(2121):20180106. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2018.0106
Alakkat U, Kolli R, Fernandes SE, Patwardhan SK (2006) Sea level changes along the Indian coast: observations and projections. Curr Sci 90(3)
All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (2009) Microinsurance for Disaster Risk Reduction: Training manual. https://www.undp.org/asia-pacific/publications/microinsurance-disaster-risk-reduction. Accessed 08 December 2023
Asian Development Bank (2021) Microinsurance for Climate Change and Disaster Resilience: Capacity Building and Implementation Support. https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/project-documents/44934/44934-031-tar-en.pdf. Accessed 08 December
Baburaj PP, Abhilash SR, Nirmal CSA, Sreenath AV, Mohankumar K, Sahai AK (2021) Increasing incidence of Arabian Sea cyclones during the monsoon onset phase: its impact on the robustness and advancement of Indian summer monsoon. Atmos Res 267:105915. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosres.2021.105915
Bahadur A, Wilkinson E, Lovell E, Tanner T (2015) Resilience in the SDGs: developing an indicator for Target 1.5 that is fit for purpose. Overseas Dev. Inst
Bell S, Chand SS, Tory KJ, Ye H, Turville C (2020) North Indian Ocean tropical cyclone activity in CMIP5 experiments: future projections using a model-independent detection and tracking scheme. Int J Climatol 40(15):6492–6505. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.6594
Bhatia KT, Vecchi GA, Murakami H, Underwood S, Kossin JP (2018) Projected response of Tropical Cyclone intensity and intensification in a global climate model. J Clim 31(20):8281–8303. https://doi.org/10.1175/jcli-d-17-0898.1
Bindal MK, Kumar S, Thomas G, Gupta A (2021) Working Group Report: Disaster Risk Financing, Insurance and Risk Transfer. National Institute of Disaster Management, New Delhi. https://nidm.gov.in/PDF/pubs/WGR_NIDMandIII_2021.pdf. Accessed 08 December
Birkmann J (2007) Risk and vulnerability indicators at different scales: Applicability, usefulness and policy implications. Environ Hazards 7(1):20–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envhaz.2007.04.002
Burrough PA, McDonnell RA (1998) Principles of Geographical Information systems. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Chambers R (2006) Participatory mapping and Geographic Information Systems: whose map? Who is empowered and who Disempowered? Who gains and who loses? Electron J Inform Syst Developing Ctries 25:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1681-4835.2006.tb00163.x
Chugh G (2020) Land Mismanagement and Coastal disasters. In: Singh A, Fernando RLS, Haran NP (eds) Development in Coastal zones and Disaster Management. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore, pp 87–99
CRED (Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters) (2020) Human cost of disasters: An overview of the last 20 years (2000–2019). https://www.undrr.org/sites/default/files/inlineiles/Human%20Cost%20of%20Disasters%202000-2019%20FINAL.pdf. Accessed 03 June 2023
Cutter SL, Boruff B, Shirley WL (2003) Social Vulnerability to Environmental hazards. Soc Sci Q 84(2):242–261. https://doi.org/10.1111/1540-6237.8402002
Deshpande M, Singh VK, Ganadhi MK, Roxy MK, Emmanuel R, Kumar M (2021) Changing status of tropical cyclones over the north Indian Ocean. Clim Dyn 57(11–12):3545–3567. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-021-05880-z
Eckstein D, Künzel V, Schäfer L (2021) Global Climate Risk Index 2021: Who Suffers Most Extreme Weather Events? Weather-Related Loss Events in 2019 and 2000–2019. Germanwatch. https://www.germanwatch.org/en/cri. Accessed 03 June 2023
Estoque RC, Ishtiaque A, Parajuli J, Athukorala D, Rabby YW, Ooba M (2023) Has the IPCC’s revised vulnerability concept been well adopted? Ambio 52(2):376–389. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-022-01806-z
Gornitz V (1990) Vulnerability of the East Coast, U.S.A. to future sea level rise. J Coastal Res (Special Issue) 9:201–237
Gornitz V (1991) Global coastal hazards from future sea level rise. Palaeogeogr Palaeoclimatol Palaeoecol 89(4):379–398. https://doi.org/10.1016/0031-0182(91)90173-o
Government of Kerala (2019) Rebuild Kerala Development Program: A Resilient Recovery Policy Framework and Action Plan for Shaping Kerala’s Resilient, Risk-Informed Development and Recovery from 2018 Floods. https://www.preventionweb.net/files/67193_rebuildkeraladevelopmentprogramme.pdf. Accessed 07 December 2023
Greco S, Ishizaka A, Tasiou M, Pardalos PM (2018) On the Methodological Framework of Composite indices: a review of the issues of weighting, aggregation, and Robustness. Soc Indic Res 141(1):61–94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-017-1832-9
Himmelstoss EA, Henderson RE, Kratzmann MG, Farris AS (2018) Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS) version 5.0 user guide: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2018–1179. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA, pp 110. https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr20181179
IPCC (2001) Climate Change 2001: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York
IPCC (2007) Climate Change 2007: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
IPCC (2012) Managing the risks of Extreme events and disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York
IPCC (2014) Climate Change 2014: impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York
IPCC (2021) Climate Change 2021: the physical science basis. Cambridge University Press
IPCC (2022) Climate Change 2022: impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York
Jana AB, Hegde AV (2016) GIS based Approach for Vulnerability Assessment of the Karnataka Coast, India. Adv Civil Eng 2016:1–10. https://doi.org/10.1155/2016/5642523
Jurgilevich A, Räsänen A, Groundstroem F, Juhola S (2017) A systematic review of dynamics in climate risk and vulnerability assessments. Environ Res Lett 12(1):013002. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa5508
Kerala State Planning Board (2022) Fourteenth Five Year Plan (2022–2027): Working Group Report on Disaster Management. Government of Kerala. https://spb.kerala.gov.in/sites/default/files/inline-files/Disaster%20Management-CDIT-FINAL.pdf. Accessed 07 December 2023
Khan MS, Anwar S, Sarkodie SA, Yaseen MR, Nadeem AM (2023) Do natural disasters affect economic growth? The role of human capital, foreign direct investment, and infrastructure dynamics. Heliyon 9(1):e12911. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e12911
Knutson TR, Camargo SJ, Chan JCL, Emanuel K, Ho C-H, Kossin JP, Mohapatra M, Satoh M, Sugi M, Walsh KJ, Wu L (2020) Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change Assessment: part II: projected response to anthropogenic warming. Bull Am Meteorol Soc 101(3):E303–E322. https://doi.org/10.1175/bams-d-18-0194.1
Kousky C, Wiley H, Shabman L (2021) Can parametric microinsurance improve the financial resilience of low-income households in the United States? Econ Disasters Clim Change 5(3):301–327. https://doi.org/10.1007/s41885-021-00088-1
Krishna PSS, Aboobacker VM, Madipally R, Nair LS (2023) Remotely induced storm effects on the coastal flooding along the southwest coast of India. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oceano.2023.03.003. Oceanologia
Krishnan SA, Sujith KM (2021) Understanding the need of satellite towns in India. IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering 1114(1):012043. https://doi.org/10.1088/1757-899x/1114/1/012043
Kumar B, Venugopal B, Abdul R (2018) Climate change, fisheries and coastal ecosystems in India. J Aquat Biol Fish 5:7–17
Li J, Heap AD (2008) A Review of Spatial Interpolation Methods for Environmental Scientists. Geoscience Australia. http://www.ga.gov.au/servlet/BigObjFileManager?bigobjid=GA12526. Accessed 03 December 2023
Malakar K, Mishra T, Vittal H, Karmakar S (2021) Risk mapping of Indian coastal districts using IPCC-AR5 framework and multi-attribute decision-making approach. J Environ Manage 294:112948. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.112948
Marzouk M, Attia K, Azab S (2021) Assessment of Coastal vulnerability to Climate Change impacts using GIS and remote sensing: a case study of Al-Alamein New City. J Clean Prod 290:125723. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125723
Mendoza E, Jiménez J (2009) Regional vulnerability analysis of Catalan beaches to storms. Maritime Eng 162(3):127–135. https://doi.org/10.1680/maen.2009.162.3.127
Mittal R, Tewari M, Radhakrishnan C, Ray P, Herter TM, Nickerson AK (2019) Response of tropical cyclone phailin (2013) in the Bay of Bengal to climate perturbations. Clim Dyn 53(3–4):2013–2030. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-019-04761-w
Moon I-J, Kim SW, Chan JCL (2019) Climate change and tropical cyclone trend. Nature 570(7759):E3–E5. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1222-3
Murshed S, Paull DJ, Griffin AL, Islam A (2021) A parsimonious approach to mapping climate-change-related composite disaster risk at the local scale in coastal Bangladesh. Int J Disaster Risk Reduct 55:102049. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102049
Nair LS, Prasad R, Rafeeque MK, Prakash TN (2018) Coastal morphology and long-term shoreline changes along the Southwest Coast of India. J Geol Soc India 92(5):588–595. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12594-018-1072-x
Narayana AC, Priju CP (2006) Landform and shoreline changes inferred from Satellite images along the Central Kerala Coast. J Geol Soc India 68(1):35–49
Neumann B, Ott K, Kenchington R (2017) Strong sustainability in coastal areas: a conceptual interpretation of SDG 14. Sustain Sci 12(6):1019–1035. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11625-017-0472-y
Nguyen TTX, Bonetti J, Rogers K, Woodroffe CD (2016) Indicator-based assessment of climate-change impacts on coasts: a review of concepts, methodological approaches and vulnerability indices. Ocean Coastal Manage 123:18–43. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2015.11.022
Noujas V, Thomas KV (2015) Erosion hotspots along Southwest Coast of India. Aquat Procedia 4:548–555. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aqpro.2015.02.071
Noujas V, Thomas KV, Ajeesh NR (2017) Shoreline management plan for a protected but eroding coast along the southwest coast of India. Int J Sedim Res 32(4):495–505. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsrc.2017.02.004
Papari G, Petkov N (2009) Reduced Inverse Distance Weighting Interpolation for Painterly Rendering. In: Jiang X, Petkov N (eds) Computer Analysis of Images and patterns. CAIP 2009. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, pp 509–516. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-03767-2_62
Pielke R (2019) Tracking progress on the economic costs of disasters under the indicators of the sustainable development goals. Environ Hazards 18(1):1–6
Pradeep J, Shaji E, Chandran S, Ajas H, Chandra SSV, Dev SGD, Babu DSS (2022) Assessment of coastal variations due to climate change using remote sensing and machine learning techniques: a case study from west coast of India. Estuar Coastal Shelf Sci 275:107968. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2022.107968
Reddy PJ, Sriram D, Gunthe SS, Balaji C (2021) Impact of climate change on intense Bay of Bengal tropical cyclones of the post-monsoon season: a pseudo global warming approach. Clim Dyn 56(9–10):2855–2879. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00382-020-05618-3
Rodriguez S, Subramanian D, Sridhar A, Menon M, Shanker K (2008) Policy Brief: Seawalls. UNDP/UNTRS, Chennai and ATREE, Bangalore. https://www.seaturtlesofindia.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Sea-Walls_Policy-Brief.pdf. Accessed 09 December
Ryu S, Song JJ, Kim Y, Jung S-H, Do Y, Lee G (2020) Spatial interpolation of gauge measured rainfall using compressed sensing. Asia-Pac J Atmos Sci 57(2):331–345. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13143-020-00200-7
Salim SS, Kripa V, Zacharia PU, Mohan A, Ambrose TV, Rani M (2014) Vulnerability assessment of coastal fisher households in Kerala: a climate change perspective. Indian J Fish 61(4):99–104. http://eprints.cmfri.org.in/id/eprint/10301
Selvan SC, Kankara RS, Prabhu KV, Rajan BS (2020) Shoreline change along Kerala, south-west coast of India, using geo-spatial techniques and field measurement. Nat Hazards 100(1):17–38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-019-03790-2
Shaji J (2021) Evaluating social vulnerability of people inhabiting a tropical coast in Kerala, south west coast of India. Int J Disaster Risk Reduct 56:102130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijdrr.2021.102130
Sharma J, Ravindranath NH (2019) Applying IPCC 2014 framework for hazard-specific vulnerability assessment under climate change. Environ Res Commun 1:051004. https://doi.org/10.1088/2515-7620/ab24ed
Sharma J, Murthy IK, Esteves T, Negi P, Sushma S, Dasgupta S, Barua A, Bala G, Ravindranath NH (2018) Climate Vulnerability and Risk Assessment: Framework, Methods and Guidelines. Department of Science and Technology, Government of India. https://dste.py.gov.in/PCCC/pdf/Reports/DST/DST2.pdf. Accessed 04 June 2023
Sreelakshmi M (2022) Emergence of Kerala Coast as Disaster Hotspot - Implications for Management. Dissertation, Kerala Agricultural University
UN (2020) Policies on spatial distribution and urbanization have broad impacts on sustainable development. https://www.un.org/development/desa/pd/content/policies-spatial-distribution-and-urbanization-have-broad-impacts-sustainable-development. Accessed 12 June 2023
UN (2018) Economic Losses and Displacement Should Drive Disaster Risk Reduction Efforts. https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/economic-losses-and-displacement-should-drive-disaster-risk-reduction-efforts. Accessed 03 June 2023
UNDDR (2015) Making Development Sustainable: The Future of Disaster Risk Management. Global Assessment Report on Disaster Risk Reduction. https://www.undrr.org/publication/global-assessment-report-disaster-risk-reduction-2015. Accessed 03 June 2023
UNDDR (2009) Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction. https://www.undrr.org/publication/2009-unisdr-terminology-disaster-risk-reduction. Accessed 05 June 2023
UNDRR (2007) Sendai Framework Terminology on Disaster Risk Reduction. https://www.undrr.org/terminology/vulnerability. Accessed 05 June 2023
UNEP (2011) Environment and Disaster Risk: Emerging Perspectives. https://wedocs.unep.org/20.500.11822/7886. Accessed 03 June 2023
Wu S-Y, Yarnal B, Fisher A (2002) Vulnerability of coastal communities to sea-level rise: a case study of Cape May County, New Jersey, USA. Climate Res 22:255–270. https://doi.org/10.3354/cr022255
Zhang H, Lu L, Liu Y, Liu W (2015) Spatial sampling strategies for the effect of interpolation accuracy. ISPRS Int J Geo-information 4(4):2742–2768. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi4042742
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Hon’ble Vice-Chancellor, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies (KUFOS), Dean, Faculty of Ocean Sciences and Technology, KUFOS for permitting and providing facilities to conduct the study. The review by the two anonymous reviewers greatly helped us to enhance the quality of the paper.
Funding
The authors thank Government of Kerala, and the Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Studies for establishing the Climate Resilience and Environment Management Centre.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
Conceptualization: Sreelakshmi M, Sanjay Balachandran, and Shijo Joseph; Methodology: Sreelakshmi M, Fathima Abdurazak and Shijo Joseph; Writing - Sreelakshmi M, Sanjay Balachandran, and Shijo Joseph; All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Compliance with ethical standards
All ethics were followed during the preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interests
The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
About this article
Cite this article
Sreelakshmi, M., Balachandran, S., Abdurazak, F. et al. From perils to preparedness: Decoding coastal hazard risks on Kerala’s central coast through the IPCC framework. Nat Hazards (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-024-06543-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-024-06543-y