Coastal hazards, vulnerability and risk
Coastal Hazards are natural physical phenomena that expose a coastal area to risk of property damage, loss of life and environmental degradation. Examples include storms accompanied with strong winds, high waves and storm surges. Tsunamis, coastal erosion and overwash/overtopping are also examples of coastal hazards. Some biologic phenomenon can also be seen as coastal hazards. A good example would be harmful algae blooms which can cause severe ecological, health and economic impacts.
Within coastal zone management, vulnerability expresses the likelihood of a given part of the coast, habitat, community, ecosystem or infrastructure to be affected by coastal hazards. Vulnerability excludes the human factor and relates only to the natural ability to be protected from hazards. Risk includes the human factor and is the result of the likelihood of occurrence of a specific coastal hazard event multiplied by the socio-economic damage caused by that event.
An example would be the fact that a coastal stretch with low lying and breached dunes is highly vulnerable to the overwash hazard but if there is no human occupation the risk level is minimum or inexistent. A major storm would cause no direct threat to human occupation on that beach. On the contrary, a densely occupied area fronted with continuous robust high dunes could nevertheless correspond to a high risk situation since a major storm could impose serious damage on property and life [1].
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