A review of storms and marine coastal flooding in the Baltic Sea – Insights from instrumental, historical and sedimentary record

Abstract

This paper reviews the state of knowledge on past and present storms and marine coastal flooding (MCF) events of various origins within the Baltic Sea, which is an economically and environmentally important part of northwestern Europe. We show that the combination of sedimentary, historical and instrumental records provides the most comprehensive insight into the history of storms and MCF. The frequency and intensity of these events vary considerably throughout the region and over the time (past 7000 years). The southwestern and southern Baltic Sea coasts are identified as the area most vulnerable to hazard posed by storms and MCF, both in the past and in the future. The best records of storms come from urbanized areas where long tide-gauge and historical records are available, while storminess history is best reconstructed from inland sedimentary and peat archives. Archives of MCF have been preserved only in a few locations and represent local, but temporaly comprehensive record of the most severe events. However, it remains challenging to relate records of storms, storminess, and storm-induced MCF to each other.