Hazard assessment for typhoon-induced coastal flooding and inundation in
Shanghai, China
Abstract
This paper describes an integrated statistical-hydrodynamic method to
estimate tropical cyclone-induced coastal flood inundation hazard,
applied to a coastal megacity-Shanghai, China. We identify three
“worst-case” scenarios (extracted from over 5000 synthetic storms)
that generate unprecedentedly high flood levels in Shanghai.
Nevertheless, we find that the mainland Shanghai is relatively safe from
coastal flooding under the current climate, thanks to its high-standard
seawall protection. However, the city is expected to be increasingly at
risk due to future sea level rise, with inundation two times and 20
times more likely to occur by mid-and late-21 st century, respectively,
and inundation depth and area to greatly increase (e.g., 60-1360%
increase in the inundation area for the “worst cases” by 2100). The
low-lying and poorly-protected area (e.g. Chongming island) is likely to
be moderately affected by flood events with long return periods at the
current state but could be largely inundated in future sea-level-rise
situations.