Global Investment Costs for Coastal Defense through the 21st Century

Nicholls, Robert J. ; Hinkel, Jochen ; Lincke, Daniel ; van der Pol, Thomas

World Bank, Washington, DC

关键词: SEA-LEVEL RISE;    COASTAL FLOODING;    ADAPTATION;    CLIMATE CHANGE ADAPTATION;    RISING SEA LEVELS;   

DOI  :  10.1596/1813-9450-8745
RP-ID  :  WPS8745

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

【 摘 要 】

Sea-level rise threatens low-lying areasaround the world's coasts with increased coastalflooding during storms. One response to this challenge is tobuild or upgrade coastal flood defenses. This reportexamines the potential investment costs of such anadaptation strategy applied globally over the 21st centuryfor sea-level rise scenarios consistent with threeRepresentative Concentration Pathways and 3 SharedSocioeconomic Pathways. For all the protection modelsconsidered, much less than half of the world's coast isprotected. The total defense costs are significantly higherthan earlier estimates, amounting to as much as US$18.3trillion. With cost-benefit analysis, there are largeuncertainties and empirical observations of protectionstandards are limited. Hence, the estimates should beconsidered as indicative, and this remains an importanttopic for future research. Further, building defenses is nota one-off capital investment. Over the 21st century, thecost of a comprehensive protection strategy is dominated bymaintenance costs in all the cases considered in thisreport. This indicates that in addition to capitalinvestment, the development of appropriate institutions andgovernance mechanisms to deliver maintenance, as well as thenecessary funding streams, are essential for such aprotection-based adaptation strategy to be effective.