Citation
(2007), "Coastal Issues", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 16 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2007.07316bag.004
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Coastal Issues
Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration: Preliminary Technical Report to Congress, 2006
78 pp. Free onlineUS Army Corps of Engineers, New Orleans District: http://lacpr.usace.army.mil/After Hurricane Katrina, Congress directed the US Army Corps of Engineers to cooperate with the state of Louisiana in designing a comprehensive protection strategy for a category 5 hurricane that would include a full range of flood control, coastal restoration, and other protective measures. This preliminary report captures the work performed to date and presents a framework for informing future decisions about hurricane risk reduction options for coastal Louisiana. It provides background information on the hurricane risk to the area; describes existing programs for coastal restoration; discusses the communities, infrastructure, and resources that are at risk; and evaluates the applicability to Louisiana of a range of options for flood control, mitigation, and restoration.
The work that remains to be done to produce a final technical report is also described.
Assessing Coastal Vulnerability: Developing a Global Index for Measuring Risk. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 2006
64 pp. Free onlineUNEP; www.unep.org/Dewa/products/publications/2006/CVI_PM65_Final_05.pdfAbout 41 per cent of the world’s population lives in the coastal zone (within 100 km of shore), which accounts for only about 7 per cent of the earth’s habitable land area. The average population density in the global coastal zone increased about 12 per cent from 1990 to 2000, and nine of the world’s ten most densely populated cities are located in coastal areas. Coastal inhabitants are exposed to windstorms, waves, tidal surges, and rising sea levels, and their vulnerability increases as coastal and marine ecosystems are degraded and natural defenses lost. This assessment gives an overview of current global coastal monitoring; analyzes the relationship between socioeconomic and environmental indicators in coastal zones; and reviews the relationships among human activities, environmental threats, and coastal environments in terms of population pressure, land cover, geographic exposure, the probability of natural hazards, and the coping capacities of coastal communities. The study developed a preliminary Coastal Vulnerability Index, which assigns a rough measure of each country’s relative vulnerability based on its exposure to natural hazards and its individual coping capacity.