CHES · Resilience of Coastal Human-Environment Systems

Coastal cities face an increasing threat from storms due to the growing coastal populations and the intensifying storms under global warming. Coastal ecosystems can significantly reduce catastrophic damage from storms; however, existing risk assessments for coastal cities either do not include this crucial factor or do not consider future ecosystem changes. The proposed project, Resilience of Coastal Human-Environment Systems, CHES, will provide a holistic view of coastal environment resilience against storms under climate change by accounting for both the human and ecosystem elements. This work will quantify the protective effect of coastal ecosystems, forecast the future ecosystem conditions, and estimate the resilience of the coupled human-environment systems under different coastal urban development and climate scenarios. This project will greatly advance our understanding of the vulnerability of coastal human-environment systems to storms and the value of coastal ecosystems in storm protection, contributing to the development of sustainable coastal management plans coping with climate change.