Nature Communications (May 2020)

Economic motivation for raising coastal flood defenses in Europe

  • Michalis I. Vousdoukas,
  • Lorenzo Mentaschi,
  • Jochen Hinkel,
  • Philip J. Ward,
  • Ignazio Mongelli,
  • Juan-Carlos Ciscar,
  • Luc Feyen

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-15665-3
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 11, no. 1
pp. 1 – 11

Abstract

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There lacks a European cost-benefit analysis of possible protective measures against rising seas. Here the authors used a probabilistic data and modeling framework to estimate costs and benefits of coastal protection measures and found that at least 83% of flood damages could be avoided by dyke improvements along a third of the European coastline.