Abstract
One of the major consequences of global warming is sea-level rise. Although considerable numbers of studies have been performed so far, the present knowledge about the coastal impact in global and regional scales and the most vulnerable areas are not sufficient yet. In this study, a regional assessment is carried out to obtain a better quantitative picture of the impact in the Asian and Pacific region. The assessment is based on a 1'×1' grid system in the longitudinal and latitudinal directions set in a GIS system. Basic data such as topography, population distribution, and tropical cyclones are taken from global environmental and geographic databases. The highest storm surge level is calculated using cyclone records for the past 40 years for the whole Asian and Pacific region. Site-specific sea level scenarios in the future are constructed by superposing the high water level of the astronomical tide, storm surges and future sea-level rise. The indexes taken to represent the impacts are areas of inundation (permanent flooding) and episodic flooding by storm surges, and population at risk. The land area affected by storm surges after 1m sea-level rise will be about 858, 000km2 or 1.32% of the total land in the region, 247, 000km2 larger than that before the lm sea-level rise.
