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Shortening the recurrence periods of extreme water levels under future sea-level rise

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Abstract

Sea-level rise, as a result of global warming, may lead to more natural disasters in coastal regions where there are substantial aggregations of population and property. Thus, this paper focuses on the impact of sea-level rise on the recurrence periods of extreme water levels fitted using the Pearson type III (P-III) model. Current extreme water levels are calculated using observational data, including astronomical high tides and storm surges, while future extreme water levels are determined by superposing scenario data of sea-level rise onto current extreme water levels. On the basis of a case study using data from Shandong Province, China, results indicated that sea-level rise would significantly shorten the recurrence periods of extreme water levels, especially under higher representative concentration pathway (RCP) scenarios. Results showed that by the middle of the century, 100-year current extreme water levels for all stations would translate into once in 15–30 years under RCP 2.6, and once in ten to 25 years under RCP 8.5. Most seriously, the currently low probability event of a 1000-year recurrence would become common, occurring nearly every 10 years by 2100, based on projections under RCP 8.5. Therefore, according to this study, corresponding risk to coastlines could well be increase in future, as the recurrence periods of extreme water levels would be shortened with climate change.

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Acknowledgments

Observational data from tide-gauge stations were provided by the National Marine Data and Information Service, People’s Republic of China. This work was supported by the National Science and Technology Support Program (Grant No. 2013BAK05B04), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41530749) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) Funding Projects of China (Grant No. 2013034). The authors would also like to thank Dr. Tao Pan, Dongsheng Zhao, and Yunhe Yin whose suggestions and comments greatly improved the final version of this paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation,Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Shaohong Wu, Aiqing Feng & Jiangbo Gao

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Aiqing Feng & Yanzhong Li

  3. National Marine Data and Information Service, Tianjin, 300171, China

    Manchun Chen

  4. Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Processes, Institute of Geographical Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China

    Yanzhong Li

  5. The Yellow River Institute of Science, North China University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Zhengzhou, 450045, China

    Lei Wang

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  1. Shaohong Wu
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  4. Manchun Chen
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Correspondence to Shaohong Wu.

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Wu, S., Feng, A., Gao, J. et al. Shortening the recurrence periods of extreme water levels under future sea-level rise. Stoch Environ Res Risk Assess 31, 2573–2584 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00477-016-1327-2

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