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Advances in Spatial Data Handling and GIS pp 213–226Cite as

A Decision Support Framework for the Risk Assessment of Coastal Erosion in the Yangtze Delta

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography ((LNGC))

Abstract

Coastal erosion is an issue of widespread concern and the Yangtze Delta is one of the most important economic regions in China, has been showing a trend towards such erosion. Possible influences are global warming in the form of sea level rise and the increasing human activities in the catchment and its estuary. Most Current studies on coastal erosion in this region have focused on the causes and types of erosion. This paper presents a Decision Support Framework (DSF) to estimate the likelihood and possible degree of coastal erosion in the coastal zone of the Yangtze Delta. The framework also enables consideration of the potential management problems and economic development challenges. It has four major components: an integrated database, GIS-based risk assessment models, scenario generator and a visualization toolkit. Specific focus is on the development of a GIS-based risk assessment model for the muddy coasts of the Yangtze Delta. An Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method was used to weight the variables of the model, such as coastal elevation, coastal slope, et al. The assessment results show the validity of the approach. The DSF will make relevant specialized data and information more accessible to managers, and has an extensive capability to facilitate communication and subsequent synergetic work between man and computers.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Programme Strategic Scientific Alliances between China and the Netherlands (2008DFB90240), the state key laboratory special fund from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, the School Foundation of Xuzhou Normal University (11XLR04), the Doctoral Fund of Shanghai Ocean University. We also sincerely thank Dr. Ge Jianzhong for his help in simulating significant wave heights. Special thanks are due to anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions for the improvement of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geodesy and Geomatics, Xuzhou Normal University, Xuzhou, 221116, China

    Xing Li

  2. State Key Laboratory of Estuarine and Coastal Research, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

    Yunxuan Zhou, Fang Shen & Wen Wu

  3. School of Architectural and Surveying & Mapping Engineering, Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, Ganzhou, China

    Runyuan Kuang

  4. College of Information, Shanghai Ocean University, Shanghai, China

    Zongsheng Zheng

Authors
  1. Xing Li
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  2. Yunxuan Zhou
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  3. Fang Shen
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  4. Runyuan Kuang
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  5. Wen Wu
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  6. Zongsheng Zheng
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Xing Li .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Centre of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Hong Kong, Porkfulam Road, Hong Kong SAR, China, People's Republic

    Anthony G.O. Yeh

  2. Hung Hom, Dept. of Land Surveying and, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China, People's Republic

    Wenzhong Shi

  3. , Dept. of Geography, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China, People's Republic

    Yee Leung

  4. , Institute of Geographical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Bejing, China, People's Republic

    Chenghu Zhou

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© 2012 Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg

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Li, X., Zhou, Y., Shen, F., Kuang, R., Wu, W., Zheng, Z. (2012). A Decision Support Framework for the Risk Assessment of Coastal Erosion in the Yangtze Delta. In: Yeh, A., Shi, W., Leung, Y., Zhou, C. (eds) Advances in Spatial Data Handling and GIS. Lecture Notes in Geoinformation and Cartography. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25926-5_16

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