Threshold effects of hazard mitigation in coastal human-environmental systems

Lazarus, Eli Dalton 2014. Threshold effects of hazard mitigation in coastal human-environmental systems. Earth Surface Dynamics 2 (1) , pp. 35-45. 10.5194/esurf-2-35-2014

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Abstract

Despite improved scientific insight into physical and social dynamics related to natural disasters, the financial cost of extreme events continues to rise. This paradox is particularly evident along developed coastlines, where future hazards are projected to intensify with consequences of climate change, and where the presence of valuable infrastructure exacerbates risk. By design, coastal hazard mitigation buffers human activities against the variability of natural phenomena such as storms. But hazard mitigation also sets up feedbacks between human and natural dynamics. This paper explores developed coastlines as exemplary coupled human–environmental systems in which hazard mitigation is the key coupling mechanism. Results from a simplified numerical model of an agent-managed seawall illustrate the nonlinear effects that economic and physical thresholds can impart into coastal human–environmental system dynamics. The scale of mitigation action affects the time frame over which human activities and natural hazards interact. By accelerating environmental changes observable in some settings over human timescales of years to decades, climate change may temporarily strengthen the coupling between human and environmental dynamics. However, climate change could ultimately result in weaker coupling at those human timescales as mitigation actions increasingly engage global-scale systems.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Earth and Environmental Sciences
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GE Environmental Sciences Q Science > QE Geology
Publisher:	European Geosciences Union
ISSN:	2196-632X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	30 March 2016
Date of Acceptance:	13 January 2014
Last Modified:	23 May 2023 14:39
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/56776

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