Linking source with consequences of coastal storm impacts for climate change and risk reduction scenarios for Mediterranean sandy beaches

Integrated risk assessment approaches to support coastal managers’ decisions when designing plans are increasingly becoming an urgent need. To enable efficient coastal management, possible present and future scenarios must be included, disaster risk reduction (DRR) measures integrated, and multiple hazards dealt with. In this work, the Bayesian Network approach to coastal risk assessment was applied and tested at two Mediterranean sandy coasts (Tordera Delta in Spain and Lido degli Estensi–Spina in Italy). Process-oriented models are used to predict hazards at the receptor scale based on a large number of storm characteristics. Hazards are converted into impacts through vulnerability relations. A Bayesian Network integrates all results to link forcing characteristics with expected impacts through conditional probabilities. The tool has been proven successful in reproducing current coastal responses at both sites. It has also shown great utility for scenario comparisons, and is able to output significant impact change trends, despite the inherent uncertainties of the approach. This work highlights the advantages of using such a tool for present and future coastal risk assessment and planning.