Assessing coastal vulnerability to sea level rise: The case study of Slovenia

Abstract

The sea level rise, as a result of climate change, is inevitable and will represent one of the greatest challenges for the coastal regions in the coming years. Therefore, the need to assess and monitor the vulnerability of the coastal regions to these hazards has been of growing interest and has also been highlighted in many recent studies. In this context, the main goal of this paper is to analyse and map the vulnerability of the Slovenian coast to sea level rise, a coastal area historically known to be highly susceptible to coastal flooding and erosion. Since there is no single method for measuring vulnerability, we chose to use an index-based approach that expresses coastal vulnerability through a one-dimensional vulnerability index. The study was conducted using a combination of the Physical Vulnerability Index (PVI) and GIS methods to assess the physical parameters of the coastal region (elevation, coastal slope, coastal orientation, bathymetry, presence/absence of protective structures, beach width, and geomorphological processes) and classify them into five categories of coastal vulnerability. The results show that 7.5% of the coastline can be classified as highly vulnerable and 2.5% as very highly vulnerable.