Improved estimates of coastal population and exposure to hazards released

Though it is well known that the world's coastlines are heavily populated, the combined implications of population growth and climate change are still subject to debate. Models of hazard impact, adaptation, and vulnerability stress the importance of understanding both exposure and adaptive capacity of the threatened systems e.g., Smit et al ., 2001. Combining geophysical and socio‐economic data sets can greatly improve our understanding of exposure at a range of scales from local to global. Here we estimate an upper bound on the global exposure to coastal hazards based on 1990 population distribution. The focus is on exposure to natural hazards, but these estimates also provide an indication of the direct human pressure on the coastal zone. Data from 1990 were used, as this global population distribution was the most robust currently available.