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Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331
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Reflections on coastal inundation, climate change impact, and adaptation in

built environment: progresses and constraints
Xiaoming WANG a,*, XU Li-Lai b, CUI Sheng-Hui b, Chi-Hsiang WANG c
a
The State Key Laboratory of the Cryospheric Science, Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000,
China
b
Key Laboratory of Urban Environment and Health, Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xiamen, 361021, China
c
Energy, CSIRO, Clayton South, Vic 3169, Australia
Received 2 December 2019; revised 9 October 2020; accepted 27 November 2020
Available online 17 December 2020

Abstract

Coastal inundation causes considerable impacts on communities and economies. Sea level rise due to climate change increases the occurrence
of coastal flood events, creating more challenges to coastal societies. Here we intend to draw the understanding of coastal inundation from our
early studies, and provide a silhouette of our approaches in assessing climate change impacts as well as developing risk-based climate adap-
tation. As a result, we impart a distinctive view of the adaption towards the integration of asset design, coastal planning and policy development,
which reflect multiscale approaches crossing individual systems to regions and then nation. Having the approaches, we also discussed the
constraints that would be faced in adaptation implementation. In this regard, we initially follow the risk approach by illustrating hazards,
exposure and vulnerability in relation to coastal inundation, and manifest the impact and risk assessment by considering an urban environment
pertinent to built, natural, and socioeconomic systems. We then extend the scope and recommend the general approaches in developing
adaptation to coastal inundation under climate change towards ameliorating overall risks, practically, by the reduction in exposure and
vulnerability in virtue of the integration of design, planning and polices. In more details, a resilience design is introduced, to effectively enhance
the capacity of built assets to resist coastal inundation impact. We then emphasize on the cost-effective adaptation for coastal planning, which
delineates the problem of under-adaptation that leaves some potential benefits unrealized or over-adaptation that potentially consumes an
excessive amount of resources. Finally, we specifically explore the issues in planning and policies in mitigating climate change risks, and put
forward some emerging constraints in adaptation implementation. It suggests further requirements of harmonizing while transforming national
policies into the contents aligned with provincial and local governments, communities, and households.

Keywords: Coastal inundation; Coastal disaster; Sea level rise; Climate change; Coastal disaster risk reduction; Climate adaptation

1. Introduction
Inundation is caused by high water level such as storm
surges along coasts when low-pressure weather systems, cy-
clones, or storm winds combine with high tides to drive sea
water onshore. It can also happen as a result of large king tides
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: xiaomingwang@lzb.ac.cn (WANG X.).
Peer review under responsibility of National Climate Center (China
Meteorological Administration).
on coasts and other high riverine water events in inland areas.
Coastal inundation could lead to disasters that cause signifi-
cant loss. The fact was demonstrated by the disaster caused by
super typhoon Haiyan (locally named Yolanda) in the
Philippines that caused approximately 6000 fatalities, more
than 27,000 injured, and thousands missing, given in the
Philippine Government report of Building Back Better in
December 2013. The scale of the impact was also shown in the
direct loss of up to 9 billion USD as a result of damage to
infrastructure and agriculture in addition to more than one
million damaged houses.

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318 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331
The risk of coastal inundation is expected to increase in the
next few decades, especially in low-lying areas, considering
climate change and subsequent global sea level rise (SLR) in a
very high confidence (IPCC, 2019). The global mean SLR
over the past years has increased with a significant contribu-
tion from the Greenland ice sheet (Chen et al., 2017; The
IMBIE Team, 2019). If the trend continues, risks caused by
coastal inundation may increase. In fact, the IPCC Fifth
Assessment Report projected that the global mean sea level
will continue to rise during the 21st century, and the rate of
increase will likely exceed that observed during 1971e2010
due to increasing ocean warming and mass loss of glaciers and
ice sheets (IPCC, 2013; 2014). The increase rate is 2.1 mm per
year in 1901e1990, 2.1 mm per year in 1970e2015, 3.2 mm
per year in 1993e2015, and 3.6 mm per year in 2006e2015
(IPCC, 2019). The potential nonlinear responses and tipping
point in mass loss of Greenland and Antarctic ice sheet would
likely suggest more SLR (The IMBIE Team, 2019; Pattyn
et al., 2018). It is envisaged that the global flood losses
would be exacerbated by SLR together with the effect of
subsidence to an unacceptable level, and even if adaptation
would be applied to maintain the flood probability, the losses
is still considerably higher (Hallegatte et al., 2013). Moreover,
the increased coastal flooding would create more impacts on
river deltas, disproportionally affecting disadvantaged com-
munities in the countries with least developed economy
(Edmonds et al., 2020).
The effect of SLR on storm tides is schematically described
in Fig. 1. Given the same average recurrence interval (ARI),
the SLR may intensify storm tides. Meanwhile, given the same
intensity of a storm tide event, the corresponding ARI de-
clines, indicating that the event becomes more frequent, as
shown by many studies (Lin et al., 2012; Mendelsohn et al.,
2012; Woodworth et al., 2011).
The increases in intensity and frequency have led to im-
pacts on ecosystems, communities, and infrastructure systems
as well as the broad economy (Mcinnes et al., 2003; Yin et al.,
2011, 2013; Wang et al., 2014). According to the report on
Fig. 1. Effect of sea level rise on storm tides.
Climate Change Risks to Australia's Coasts (DCC, 2009), out
of 711,000 existing residential buildings close to the sea, be-
tween 157,000 and 247,600 properties were potentially
exposed to flooding with a SLR of 1.1 m. Furthermore, nearly
39,000 buildings located within 110 m of shorelines would be
at risk from accelerated erosion due to SLR and changing
climate conditions. If all these buildings were destroyed, the
cost of replacing them would be estimated at 41e63 billion
AUD. Essential services such as hospitals, electricity genera-
tion, and wastewater management would be also at risk from
coastal inundation. Continuing growth in coastal population
means that a larger number of people, their property, and
infrastructure could be exposed (Wang et al., 2010). The low-
lying areas with high density of population in developing
countries may highly expose their settlements, which are often
disadvantaged groups, to the risks of coastal inundation
(Nicholls and Cazenave, 2010).
At the global scale, Hinkel et al. (2009, 2014) applied na-
tional population and GDP dataset and developed the dynamic
interactive vulnerability assessment (DIVA) model for quan-
tifying the global flood damage and adaptation costs under
21st century sea level rise, indicating 0.2%e4.6% of global
population and 0.3%e9.3% of global GDP could be exposed
in 2100 under 25e123 cm of global mean SLR. By linking
exposed assets to population, Hallegatte et al. (2013) estimated
that the flood losses in the global 136 largest coastal cities
would reach 52 billion USD by 2050 by projected socioeco-
nomic change. An early study by Nicholls et al. (2004) also
indicated that coastal wetlands would be lost due to SLR with
5%e20% losses by the 2080s in the SRES A1FI scenario.
It is the current understanding that the potential increase of
catastrophic impacts by coastal flooding, particularly exacer-
bated by SLR, warrants the needs of proper preparedness and
adaptation to minimize the consequent risks (Woodruff et al.,
2013), which would lead to significant benefits (Hallegatte
et al., 2013; Vousdoukas et al., 2020). Meanwhile, the soci-
eties have demonstrated ability in adapting to SLR based on
coastal engineering, economics, finance and social science, but
more or less are subject to different degrees of technical and
socioeconomic barriers (Hinkle et al., 2018). In fact, the
minimizing of coastal flooding risks demands an approach that
involves governments, industries, communities, and in-
dividuals working together to come up with practical and
affordable solutions. It suggests that adaptation should
concurrently be developed and implemented at the corre-
sponding scales that fit into the stakeholders from individual to
government, whilst also raising the question on how the con-
sistency in adaptation could be maintained across the scales.
Reflecting on the coastal inundation risk analysis involving
hazard, exposure, and vulnerability assessment, here we
develop a risk-based adaptation approach, towards the inte-
gration of design, planning and policy development, which is
able to exemplify the multiscale approaches crossing indi-
vidual systems to regions and then nation. Case studies are
provided to demonstrate the approaches. Discussions are also
given to illustrate the barriers that may rise in implementing
adaptation at multi-scales.
 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331 319

2. Coastal hazard and vulnerability Southeast Queensland of Australia (SEQ) with the current
once-in-100-years inundation event, that is, the event with an
The coastal hazards mainly involve cyclones, tsunamis, average recurrence interval (ARI) of 100 years or average
storms, flooding, and erosion. A storm surge is a frequently annual occurrence probability of 1/100. It will occur nearly
occurring hazard that may cause coastal inundation and affect twice as frequently by 2030 and many times more often by the
assets such as buildings and infrastructure. The SLR as a result latter part of the century, following the decline of ARI (years)
of climate change will exacerbate the impact of storm surges. of the same magnitude of storm tide because of SLR. These
In fact, the extent of coastal inundation is determined by the are illustrated in Fig. 4, and more specifically, in Table 1.
height of storm tide, which is schematically described in Given the inundation hazard, the exposure assessment in-
Fig. 2. The total storm tide height H is given by volves points/areas/assets of interest, such as built assets and
communities, which could be at risk of hazard impacts. The
H ¼ Mean sea level þ High tide þ Storm surge extent of exposure is related to the intensity of storm tides
þ Wave setup ð1Þ represented by ARI. As an example that consider the coastal
areas with the observations of storm tides in Figs. 3 and 5
Based on the observation, storm tides can be simulated by
demonstrates that the greater ARI events lead to more expo-
generalized extreme value (GEV), generalized Pareto distri-
sure extent of communities to inundation. The SLR may
bution (GPD), or other extreme value distribution (Coles,
further increase the extent of exposure, as indicated in Fig. 6.
2001). As an example, in Fig. 3, the storm tide height is
It should be pointed out that the exposed built assets may
simulated by the GEV distribution based on observations in an
have a different degree of vulnerability to coastal hazards. The
Australian coast. The storm tide hazard is represented by the
vulnerability is deemed as the susceptibility of the assets of
height in relation to the average reoccurrence interval, which
interest to a given degree of a hazard and measured as a likely
is the average return period of events. Cautions should be paid
loss. It can be described in many ways, but all representing the
in regard to the uncertainties involved in the estimation of
loss of functionality, serviceability, or integrity. The vulnera-
extremes by extrapolating those beyond the range of obser-
bility can be quantified by a monetary term although other
vation data, as shown in Fig. 3. Having said that, it could
provide a plausible estimation of extremes for decision-
making.
The increase of mean sea level or SLR due to climate
change will change the frequency and intensity of sea levels.
Higher sea levels will likely increase the occurrence of coastal
flood events. As an example, we look into the storm tide in

Fig. 4. Changes in height of storm tides due to SLR, based on SLR scenarios
Fig. 2. Schematic of a storm tide and building design against inundation. and data described in (Wang et al., 2014).

Fig. 3. Simulation of extreme water heights using generalized extreme value (GEV) distribution based on observations in an Australian coast.
320 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331

Table 1 3. Impact and risk assessment

Changes in ARI (years) of storm tides due to SLR scenarios in SEQ, Australia,
based on Fig. 4.
The impact assessment for the built environment often re-
Current event Sea level rise (m) fers to the evaluation of economic cost as a result of losses of
0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 functionality, serviceability, or integrity given a hazard sce-
1-in-50-years 31 19 12 7 4 nario. This type of assessment differs from the exposure
1-in-100-years 61 38 23 14 9 assessment that measures the asset value exposed to a hazard
1-in-500-years 306 188 115 70 43 (not necessarily damaged), and different from the vulnerability
1-in-1000-years 613 375 230 141 86
assessment that characterizes the damage or loss of built
systems given a different severity of a hazard.
While the exposure of built assets to inundation is assessed
measurement such as fatality could also be applied depending
by overlaying them with inundation-affected areas considering
on feasibility and rationales.
different extreme storm surge scenarios, the impact is estimated
For built assets, vulnerability is considered as a lack of
by combining the exposure with the vulnerability of each asset.
capacity to resist external stresses, in more specific, to with-
Considering the urban system described in Fig. 7 and the
stand or accommodate potential adverse hazard impacts, e.g.,
vulnerability shown in Table 2, we can estimate the structural
the lack of ability to resist coastal inundation without damage.
damage of each building by Ls ¼ Cs  Af  Vs ðhÞ, where Ls is
The vulnerability can often be evaluated in regard to the
the damage loss of the structures, Cs is the construction cost of
extent of damage in relation to the hazard intensity. For an
a building per unit area, and Af is the ground floor area of the
urban system, as shown by examples in Fig. 7, the vulnera-
affected building.
bility can be represented by the loss of built, socioeconomic,
The building content loss can be estimated by Lp ¼ Cp 
and ecological systems in relation to the severity of hazards.
Af  Vp ðhÞ, where Lp is the content loss and Cp is the content
For coastal inundation, the vulnerability can be described in
value per unit area.
detail as shown in Table 2.
By linking damage or loss with a monetary measure, we PThe damage of the affected road can be calculated by Lr ¼
Cr  Leni  Vr ðhi Þ, where Lr is the road damage loss, Cr is
can describe the vulnerability in monetary terms in relation to i construction cost per unit length of roads, and Len is the
the i
the hazard intensity, such as loss curve for Queensland in
length of road section i.
Australia, as shown in Table 3. This indicator is often based on
For electrical facilities, the damage losses for each substation
observations or surveys. Of course, the damage or loss curve
and transmission tower can be estimated by Lss ¼ Css  Vss ðhÞ,
can be modeled in detail based on its dynamic process.

Fig. 5. Exposure of a community to coastal inundation (blue) given an ARI.

 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331 321

Fig. 6. Exposure of a community to coastal inundation blue (Before SLR) and dark blue (after SLR) considering SLR.

Fig. 7. An urban system considered for coastal inundation impact assessment.

where Lss is the damage loss of a substation and Css is the average
construction cost per substation.
The damage loss of affected substations is Ltt ¼ Ctt 
Vtt ðhÞ, where Ltt is the damage loss of a transmission tower
and Ctt is the average construction cost per transmission tower.
Based on ecosystem service values (Costanza et al., 1997;
Xie et al., 2008; Shi et al., 2010), the damage
PP due to ecosystem
service loss can be estimated by ESV ¼ Ai  Vis, where
i s
ESV refers to the total loss of ecosystem service value, i is the
land use type, s is the ecosystem service type, Ai is the affected
area for land use type i, and Vis is the per unit value of
ecosystem service type s for land use type i.
In the socioeconomic aspect, the population exposed to
coastal inundation can be simply evaluated by displacement
cost in inundated areas. The impact P on the secondary in-
dustries can be calculated by EI ¼ ai ADIi  AIi, where EI is
i
the added value of a secondary industry exposed to flooding,
ADIi is the added value by a per unit area of the industrial area
i, AIi is the flooded area of industrial area i, and ai is the
vulnerability coefficient.
Similarly, the impact on tertiary industries is ES ¼ bS ADS 
AS , where ES is the added value of a tertiary industry exposed to
flooding, ADS is the added value of the tertiary industry by a per
unit area, bS is the vulnerability coefficient, and AS is the flooded
area of commercial and service land. The vulnerability co-
efficients can be functions of the severity of hazards.
For example, with the loss curve and exposure extent, the
impact of inundation at different intensities can be spatially
estimated as shown in Fig. 8, where the darker color represents
the higher losses. The losses show increases in responding to
more severe storm tides (or events of greater ARIs). Moreover,
when SLR is considered, the impact increases for the same
ARI event, as shown in Fig. 9.
While an impact assessment relying on a specific ARI event
as above does provide useful information, it is not a good
practice to support decision-making, especially when planning
any action that should or not be taken in response to the
impact. If an impact assessment does not take into account the
uncertainties of hazards, in particular, the assessment is based
on a rarely occurred hazard event, the results could potentially
be misleading. The decision made upon the assessment would
be extremely risk averse. Vice versa, decisions based on the
potential impact of a frequently occurred hazard event can be
over-optimistic, potentially leading to the situation that com-
munities are unprepared to disasters. The Risk Assessment in
322 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331

Table 2
Vulnerability of urban systems to coastal inundation (examples).
System Variable Definition
Built system VS (h) Structural damage of affected buildings given water depth h
Vp(h) Content loss of affected buildings given water depth h.
Vr(hi) Damage of road section i given water depth h
Vss(h) Damage rate for substations submerged at a given water depth h
Ecosystems Vip Loss of provisioning service for land use type i
Vir Loss of regulating service for land use type i
Vic Loss of cultural service for land use type i
Vis Loss of supporting service for land use type i
Socioeconomic system Vipop Displacement cost of affected population in flooded area i, incurred when the
affected population has to be moved out the affected areas
Vii2 Loss ratio of added value given flooded secondary industrial area i
Vii3 Loss ratio of added value given flooded tertiary industrial area i

Engineering: Principles, System Representation and Risk vulnerability. In this regard, the risk can also be evaluated
Criteria by Joint Committee on Structural Safety (JCSS, 2008) based on three variables that are now widely applied, i.e.
well documented a decision-making process, which is subject
to significant uncertainties but ultimate objectives to improve Risk ¼ Hazardlikelihood  Exposurelikelihood
the quality of human life for the present and future by effective  Vulnerability ð3Þ
investments. The risk-based decision-making does provide an
Risk is essentially a combined effect of hazards (H), ex-
approach that may engender an optimized decision by
posures (E), and vulnerability (V) of assets, as shown in
assessing the risks pertinent to different alternatives under
Fig. 10. Evaluation by Eqs. (2) and (3) can be approached
considerable uncertainties.
either qualitatively or quantitatively. In the equations, the loss
In the international standard, ISO31000: Risk Management,
can be more generally represented by broader socioeconomic
the risk is considered as ‘effect of uncertainties on objectives’,
and environmental loss.
which has been adopted in structure engineering, such as
In fact, the overall annual impact could be described in
ISO2394: General Principles on Reliability for Structures. It
terms of a probability density function of damage loss or its
can be expressed by the multiplication between the conse-
cumulative probability function. This can fully represent the
quence of an event and its occurrence likelihood, i.e.
uncertainties involved in the impact of coastal inundation, and
Risk ¼ Likelihood  Consequence ð2Þ bring forward the concept of risk. Based on the result of
coastal inundation impact in Fig. 8 using the fitting of discrete
It should be pointed out that the expression of risk can be
impacts, the probability density function of damage loss and
more specific and complicated, and the consequence can be
cumulative probability function are estimated as shown in
expanded depending on a causal effect chain or network of
Fig. 11. They can be effectively represented by the exceedance
hazard events, particularly when take a more comprehensive
probability, which reflects the probability of loss more than a
system approach (JCSS, 2008). From structural engineering
certain value. In the example shown in Fig. 11, the exceedance
aspect, the consequences are related to the damage of struc-
probability of damage loss of 1 billion AUD is less than 0.5%,
tures and loss of functionality causing direct and indirect
ramifications. The actual consequence will also be affected by while the damage loss corresponding to the exceedance
probability of 1% is more than 500 million AUD. The question
many other factors such as preparedness, responsiveness as
is whether the damage loss could be afforded given the like-
well as resilience, with more specifics described in ISO2394.
lihood, and whether this condition will lead to preventive ac-
For coastal inundation, the consequence is the impact of
tion or climate adaptation to reduce the potential damage loss.
hazards in monetary terms to describe damage loss or non-
The implication of SLR can be interpreted in terms of an in-
monetary terms when related to fatalities. For built assets,
crease in damage loss given the exceedance probability or in-
the consequence can be expanded into the multiplication of
crease in exceedance probability given an amount of damage loss.
two factors including exposure likelihood and the

Table 3
Loss curve of residential housing area < 186 m2 (unit: AUD) (Smith et al., 1992).
Depth over floor level Small house area < 650 m2 Medium house 186 < area < 650 m2 Large house Area > 650 m2
0m 905 2557 5873
0.1 m 1881 5115 11,743
0.5 m 7370 13,979 25,351
1.5 m 17,379 18,585 32,276
1.8 m 17,643 18,868 32,768
 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331 323

Fig. 8. Impact of coastal inundation given a storm tide of ARI (in AUD).

When we take the result of coastal inundation impact considering
SLR in Fig. 9, with reference to the damage loss of 200 million
AUD, the exceedance probability can be more than double within
40 years, i.e., from 2010 to 2051 as shown in Fig. 12.
On the other hand, a growth in coastal population, a trend
partially resulting from sea change, may expose a larger
number of people to inundation hazards, subsequently leading
to greater potential damage losses or risks. As shown in
Fig. 13, given the damage loss of 200 million AUD, the in-
crease in exceedance probability is less than one in the same
period due to SLR. Within 40 years, the probability is almost
1% higher. This change rate implies that the impact of pop-
ulation growth is greater than that of SLR in the long run when
these factors are considered individually.

Fig. 9. Impact of coastal inundation considering SLR (in AUD).

324 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331

0.10

Loss > Threshold)

No growth
SLR
SLR
2031 growth
0.08 SLR
2051 growth

ty (Damage probability
0.06
2051 Sea Level Rise

ProbabiliExceedance
2031 Sea Level Rise
0.04

No Sea Level Rise

0.02

0.00

Fig. 10. A descriptive model of risk assessment. 100 200 1000

Damage
Damage loss
Loss(million AUD)
(million AU$)
Based on the compound impact of SLR and population
Fig. 12. Overall annual damage losses only considering SLR in 2031 and
growth, as shown in Fig. 14, the SLR significantly magnifies 2051.
the impact of population growth on the overall annual damage
loss. An increase in the exceedance probability is also
considerably escalated. This is in agreement with the
conclusion that future coastal risk depends on both climatic As shown in Fig. 15, the adaptation to minimize coastal
and socioeconomic changes in a broad study in Europe inundation risks can be developed by addressing the reduction
(Vousdoukas et al., 2018). The implication on coastal planning of three key elements shaping the risks, namely, hazard,
and policy development to reduce the future impact of coastal exposure, and vulnerability. From the perspective of climate
inundation is that both population growth and SLR have to be adaptation engineering (applying engineering solutions to
well managed into the future. Ignorance of either of the factors reduce the risks resulting from climate change), design should
will considerably underestimate the impact, thereby poten- be considered to reduce the vulnerability of housing and
tially leading to misjudgment. infrastructure. Any approach would incur a cost while
In general, the assessment of hazards, exposures, and achieving a benefit. Therefore, a balance between cost and
vulnerability as well as impact risks can offer useful infor- benefit should be considered in decision-making.
mation to support decision-making at different scales and Regardless of the costebenefit assessment for adaptation,
depths. Cautions should be taken in decision-making only on proactive adaptation measures considering key elements of
the basis of individual hazard, exposure, or vulnerability risks to limit the potential damage from storm tide events may
assessment. More decisive approach is to conduct an overall involve the following interventions:
risk assessment, so as adaptation with more systematic ap-
proaches covering all risk factors can be developed to reduce  Retrofitting of existing housing and infrastructure to reduce
the risks to coastal inundation, or more generally, to any vulnerability, protecting key infrastructure from flooding,
hazard. and building storm tide defenses to reduce exposure;

0.08
0 1.00
Exceedance probability (%)

2 0.98 0.06
Cumulative probability

Probability density

4 0.96 Mean damage loss = 31.11 million

0.04
No SLRand
No SLR andBuilding
building growth
Growth
6 0.94
Cumulative distribution
Cumulative Distribution
Probability density
8 0.92 0.02

10 0.90
0.00
0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
Damage loss (million AUD)
Fig. 11. Overall annual impacts of coastal inundation represented by probability distributions.
 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331
0.10
0.08
Exceedance probability
2051 Population
0.06
0.04
2031 Population
Current Population
0.02
0.00
100 200
Damage loss (million AUD)
Fig. 13. Overall annual damage losses by only considering growth in coastal
population in 2031 and 2051.
 Improving design standards for new buildings in affected
areas to withstand periodic inundation, e.g., minimum
freeboard or floor height, to reduce vulnerability;
 Encouraging house insurance rates that discourage living in
flood-prone areas to reduce exposure;
 Introducing stringent codes that allow the construction of
buildings and infrastructure for extreme events to reduce
vulnerability while discouraging new developments in the
risk-prone areas to reduce exposure;
 Applying land uses to allow those less sensitive to inun-
dation (e.g., parks and recreational areas) to reduce hazard
and exposure;
 Developing higher levels of government support and local
government capacity to protect local communities, such as
flexible local and regional planning to accommodate
extreme inundation events.
Risks to coastal inundation are not uniform and are affected
by local climate and topography of land and seabed. Extreme
Fig. 14. Overall annual damage loss considering SLR and population growth
in 2031 and 2051 compared with the current potential loss.
325
No growth
2031 growth
2051 growth
Fig. 15. Development of adaptation to reduce risks.
1000 rainfall may lead to riverine and estuarine flooding that further
complicates the impact of inundation by storm surge. In
addition, subsidence of cities, or sinking cities, would further
exacerbate the impact of inundation. Demography, and built
environment in the affected zone as well as overall adaptive
capacity across nations can fundamentally alter the risks. This
strengthens the case for adaptation to coastal inundation at the
national or regional level, complemented by understanding,
and acting at the local level. This will be demonstrated in the
case studies later.
4. Improving adaptation by resilience design in the
Philippines
The Philippine government introduced build back better
(BBB) in the reconstruction following the Haiyan typhoon
aftermath. In more specific, BBB means the upgrading of
minimum design requirements in rehabilitation, providing due
consideration by applying more resilient approaches (Wang
et al., 2016).
For a construction design, an acceptable inundation prob-
ability can be selected based on the risk target defined in ISO
2394: 2015eGeneral Principles on Reliability for Structures,
International Standard. The standard introduced the target
reliability based on economic optimization to balance the
safety improvement and cost to improve the safety. As a result,
it recommended relatively lower target reliability when
involving high costs while suggesting relatively a higher
target. In our studies, we assume that the standard occupancy
structures and essential facilities/special occupancy structure
should meet the requirements of class 2 and 3, respectively, in
ISO 2394. The assumption is considered to keep the risk of
structures at an acceptable level that balances the safety and
Table 4
Average annual probability of inundation height considered for design (based
on ISO 2394: 2015).
Resilience Probability of average annual occurrence
improvement Standard occupancy Essential facilities
structures and special occupancy
structures
Small 0.001 0.0005
Medium 0.0001 0.00001
Significant 0.00001 0.000005
326 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331

Table 5
Design flooding depth (unit: m) without effects of SLR (no wave setup
considered).
Resilience Standard occupancy Essential facilities
improvement structures (Class 2) and special occupancy
structures (Class 3)
Small 0.93 1.1
Medium 1.4 2.0
Significant 2.0 2.2

cost whilst maximizing the quality of life (JCSS, 2008). It is

further assumed that building assets incur damage or loss once
storm tide height is higher than the design floor height. In this
case, the probability of annual hazard occurrence, i.e. storm
tide height > the design floor height, has to be less than the
target reliability in ISO2394. As a result, Table 4 is developed
for the design floor height with considering three levels of
resilience improvement. If we take into account the wave
setup, then a height of 0.5 m has to be added into the design
storm tide height.
Climate change implies the increase in the mean sea level,
causing increase in the occurrence frequency or equivalently
decrease in the return period of a specific storm tide. We refer
a resilience design for inundation, which ensures structures
capable of resisting the impact of the minimum flooding depth
design as shown in Table 5, where the floor is high enough to
maintain the probability of storm tide higher than the floor
height, which would not exceed the target value defined in
Table 4. With resilience improvement from small, medium, to
significant in comparison with its current design, the design
flood depth for two types of building assets can be estimated
as shown in Fig. 16.
5. Integrating building designs into cost-effective coastal
planning
Australia is one of the most urbanized countries in the
world with a high coastal population density, especially
Fig. 17. Annual growth rate of population in SEQ (estimated based on pop-
ulation growth projected by Australian Bureau of Statistics, Wang et al.
(2014)).
around its five largest state capital cities. Thus, coastal inun-
dation is one of the major natural hazards faced by Australian
communities. The exposures and risks of coastal built/natural
assets to storm tide inundation are expected to be more pro-
nounced as a result of the reduced recurrence interval or
increased occurrence frequency of current storm tides due to
SLR. SEQ, the fastest-growing region within Australia in the
last two decades, is a typical area that is exposed to coastal
inundation.
The hazard curve of storm tides in SEQ is shown in Fig. 6.
We assume that the building construction would follow pop-
ulation growth projections by the Australia Bureau of Statis-
tics with constrained urban land growth. We take a scenario of
population growth projected by Australian Bureau of Statistics
(ABS) at an annual rate of about 2% as a benchmark, as shown
in Fig. 17 (Wang et al., 2014).
As shown in Fig. 18, the exposure assessment indicates the
exposure of the population, and buildings starts to rise when
the event of coastal inundation reaches the intensity of
ARI ¼ 10 years, most likely due to the reason that it may

Fig. 16. Design flood depth increased for resilience of class 2 and 3 occupancy
structures with small, medium, and significant improvement (Based on Wang
et al. (2016). PAGASA indicates Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Fig. 18. Exposure of land areas, population, and buildings to coastal inunda-
Astronomical Services Administration). tion in SEQ, Australia (Based on Wang et al. (2014)).
 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331
Fig. 19. Direct damage losses of residential buildings by coastal inundation at
different ARI in SEQ, Australia (Based on Wang et al., 2014).
reach the areas with a denser distribution of population and
buildings.
The inundation impact on buildings is estimated based on
the vulnerability curve or loss curve, as shown in Table 3. The
damage depends on water depth and floor size. Three cate-
gories of building sizes are defined as small, medium, and
large residential buildings. Based on the vulnerability curve,
the damage loss of affected buildings, directly caused by
coastal inundation as a result of storm tides at different ARIs,
is then assessed. The results are shown in Fig. 19, and the
overall direct damage loss is presented in Fig. 20, which in-
cludes the mean loss and its 10th and 90th percentiles. We
should mention that the discount rate is not considered to
convert all annual loss value into present values. It is not our
intention to discuss the effect of various discount rate to the
annual loss here, but it is very straightforward to have various
discount rate (Lee et al., 2015) to be taken into account based
on the current results.
Subsequently, adaptation should be considered to reduce
the potential impact. To consider the Greater Brisbane area in
Queensland, the scheme of raising building floors is investi-
gated for the adaptation of coastal residential buildings to
Fig. 20. Direct losses resulting from costal inundation in SEQ, Australia,
including its mean, 10th, and 90th percentiles, without consideration of SLR.
The discount rate is not considered (Based on Wang et al., 2014).
327
future coastal inundation events. The issue is the cost-effective
approach to implement the scheme; in other words, where the
scheme should be applied to achieve benefit more than the
implementation cost. The scheme could be applied to the
following:
(1) Assets immediately close to the coastlines and with high
exposure to inundation,
(2) Assets away from the coast and with medium exposure
to inundation,
(3) Assets further away from the coast and with low expo-
sure to inundation.
In analyzing the costs and benefits of the three options for
planning, the spatial distributions of new residential buildings
are determined by Monte Carlo simulation under the
assumption that they are distributed in accordance with the
current distributions of their respective mesh blocks. For
damage cost estimation, a real discount rate of 4% per annum
is assumed to convert future cost to the 2011 value. The dis-
count rate would affect the present value of future benefit as a
result of the implementation of adaptation, and thus impact on
our decision-making. A fair approach to select the discount
rate for the long-term investment could be taken with refer-
ence to the bond rate.
Based on the three options, the larger the adaptation extent,
the lower the expected future damage cost as a result of a
larger number of buildings capable of sustaining the impact of
inundation. However, the corresponding adaptation imple-
mentation cost rises at the same time. Owing to limited re-
sources, an infinitely high level of adaptation is untenable. As
shown in Fig. 21, the first option can achieve an almost im-
mediate net benefit as addressing the issues of assets with high
exposure to coastal inundation. As more areas can be covered
by the adaptation scheme, the cost would start to surpass the
benefit as demonstrated by the second option, but it can
eventually achieve a net benefit due to the increasing future
risks. Therefore, the option can be considered as a long-term
option. Taking a conservative approach by using the third
option to ensure that more buildings are protected from the
impact of potential inundation, we find that a net benefit could
hardly be achieved in the foreseeable future. In this case, the
option is considered to be over-adaptation.
In practice, the extent of adaptation is constrained by
competing policies and the planning time horizon, i.e., a future
point of time when the decision-maker sets to achieve the
planning objective. A properly developed adaptation option
can avoid the problem of under-adaptation that leaves some
potential benefits unrealized or that of over-adaptation that
consumes an excessive amount of resources leading to adverse
effects on other objectives.
To extend the aforementioned study, an adaptation extent
can be linked to the height of storm tide of an ARI. In other
words, the adaptation option is developed to sustain the
inundation impact of storm tides less than a specific height
defined by an ARI. The higher the value of ARI selected, the
more areas are covered by the adaptation scheme, and the
328 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331

Fig. 21. Costebenefit assessments for three adaptation options in terms of net present value (NPV) in billion AUD over time at 4% real discount rate (Based on
Wang et al., 2015).

greater is the cost to be incurred. Given the planning time
horizon to achieve a net benefit, a storm tide event of ARI can
be considered as a target applied in the planning for the
affected areas. As shown in Fig. 22, the longer term the
planning aims to, the severer event (higher ARI) it should
apply to balance adaptation benefits and cost while avoiding
maladaptation. For example, to implement the adaptation
scheme to the areas affected by the inundation event of
ARI ¼ 100 years, a net benefit can be achieved by the year
2050. However, to achieve a net benefit by a planning time
horizon of 2050, the areas affected by the inundation event of
ARI ¼ 100 years should be considered to implement the
adaptation.
It should be pointed out that a robust decision-making for
coastal planning should take into account uncertainties that
would be involved in the assessment, for example, the un-
certainties in socioeconomic and demographic changes in
addition to climate change and sea level rise. Therefore, sensi-
tivity analysis for any decision should be further considered.
Framework on Climate Change, and the National Climate
Change Action Plan, to guide the mainstreaming of climate
change adaptation (CCA) in policy and planning.
 The Philippine Disaster Risk Reduction and Management
Act of 2010 was enacted, creating the National Disaster
Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC),
correspondingly the NDRRM Framework and the NDRRM
Plan, to guide disaster risk reduction (DRR) actions in the
Philippines.
 The People's Survival Fund was established as a long-term
finance stream for climate change actions.
In response to the disaster,
 The Department of Budget and Management issued Na-
tional Budget Memorandum, including the creation of the
Reconstruction Assistance on Haiyan in the 2015 National
Budget, calling for systematic integration of CCA/DRR.

6. Discussion on adaptation implementation in planning

and policy development

Adaptation has started to attract strong attention in planning

and policy development in many countries. However, the
effectiveness of adaptation in planning and policies has raised
many questions, especially across different scales from gov-
ernments to communities. It was highlighted by the disaster in
the Philippines caused by super typhoon Haiyan, which led to
approximately 6000 fatalities, more than 27,000 injured; and
thousands still missing. Before the disaster, the Philippine
government already had the following initiatives in
implementation:

 The Climate Change Act of 2009 was enacted, creating the

Climate Change Commission, the National Strategic Fig. 22. Determining an adaptation extent by a planning time horizon.
 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331
Fig. 23. Gaps in development of policies and actions for climate adaptation
and natural disaster risk reduction.
 A total of 41 billion PHP was initially allotted for Haiyan
rehabilitation, administrated by NDRRMC, and the
Department of Social Welfare and Development.
 The Department of Environment and Natural Resources
defined some areas in the city as no-build zones, specif-
ically 40 m from shorelines, following the Philippine Water
Code. However, majority of the residents did not follow this
directive in rebuilding their homes.
 The Department of Labor and Employment established
emergency employment programs with support from the
International Labor Organization.
Fig. 24. Implementing the development of a policy nexus for climate adaptation and natural disaster risk reduction.
329
In hindsight, the Haiyan disaster highlights the gaps across
tiers of government from national to city/local levels down to
communities, households, and individuals, as shown in
Fig. 23, at horizontal and vertical scales. In fact, the Philip-
pine government has exerted significant efforts and great
progress in developing national policies to mitigate the risks
of natural disasters and climate change. However, the rele-
vance of these policies to implementation and their influence
gradually diminish at the finer scale of provinces, local gov-
ernment, communities, and householders, thereby creating a
significant barrier for the government to build a proper level
of capacity for the local communities and householders in
response to natural disasters and climate change risks such as
Haiyan.
With the potential increase of extreme climate risks in the
future as a result of climate change, the policy development to
enhance preparedness and prevention, especially of cata-
strophic events, should be integrated into disaster manage-
ment. It should also be reflected across all levels, as shown in
Fig. 24, to harmonize natural DRR management and CCA
policies into the legislative framework for sustainable devel-
opment, and transform national policies into the content
aligned with provincial and local governments, communities,
and households (individual, if necessary) while maintaining its
consistency, completeness, and integrity along with the na-
tional policies in terms of visions and goals. Moreover, sup-
plementing national policies with local policies at different
levels is necessary to facilitate the national capacity building
and DRR/CCA implementation across all levels.
330 WANG X. et al. / Advances in Climate Change Research 11 (2020) 317e331
7. Summary
Coastal inundation is one of major hazards to coastal set-
tlements, and SLR induced by climate change may further
magnify the hazard instigating more adverse impacts on
coastal societies. While there have been many studies on the
impact of coastal inundation under climate change, it is still
lack of clarity on how we develop adaptation in responding to
the potential impacts, especially from the prospect to integrate
the capacity of communities, industries and governments at
different scales, so that the investment of societies would not
be wasted and the quality of life would not be compromised.
Reflecting on our early studies of coastal inundation impact
on built and natural assets, coastal cities and coastal regions,
we manifested the compounding effect of climate and socio-
economic changes, and introduce a risk-based approach for the
development of adaptation. The approach allows us to shift the
focus onto the integration of design, planning and policies
towards the reduction of exposure and vulnerability to the
increasing coastal hazards as a result of SLR, and forge them
into adaptation solutions at different scales for different
stakeholders ranging from communities, industries and all
levels of government.
We introduced the resilience design of coastal built assets
to demonstrate the adaptation that can be implemented at a
design level for individual, communities and industries. We
bring in an example of coastal inundation impacts on coastal
regions, and emphasize on the adaptations in coastal planning
that makes more economic sense in terms of the balance be-
tween implementation cost and attained benefit. In particular,
this should be framed to be compatible with the planning
horizons. We also address the policy traps that may potentially
create considerable barriers for policy implementation or
disconnection between policies and local actions. To reduce
coastal inundation risks under climate change, coordinated
multi-scale approaches from both top-down and bottom-up
should be carefully taken into account in planning and pol-
icy development.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Acknowledgment
Reviews of many studies referenced in this study were
conducted in close collaboration with Prof Mark. Stewart and
Mr. Yong Bing Khoo. Great appreciation also goes to C.
Morga, Ms. A. Orquiza, Ms. G. M. Alagcan, Ms. J. Galorport,
Mr. D. G. dela Torre, Ms. P. M. Pulhin and many others for
their supports, inspirations and contributions during author's
work for projects in the Philippines, which has led to many
results discussed in this study. During the completion of this
manuscript, assistance was given by S. W. Liu and support was
provided by CAS Pioneer Hundred Talents Program.
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