Assessment of the Coastal Vulnerability to the Ongoing Sea Level Rise for the Exquisite Rhodes Island (SE Aegean Sea, Greece)

Abstract

The foreseeable acceleration of global sea level rise could potentially pose a major threat to the natural charm and functional integrity of the world-renowned tourist coastal attractions of Rhodes Island, as a result of the anticipated increasing frequency of flooding and erosion events. Hence, this study aims to determine the most vulnerable segments (in terms of physical impact) of the Rhodes coastline through the widely accepted coastal vulnerability index (CVI), applying a combination of well-known, broadly used approaches and methods. The frequency distribution of the current CVI along the island’s coastline suggests a rather worrying high to very high vulnerability of 40%. In addition, a CVI projection to the end of the 21st century (based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predictive scenarios) indicates an enhancement of the total vulnerability by 48%, mainly focused on the majority of the western coastline. Hence, a considerable number of popular coastal destinations in the island shall remain under unignorable threat and, therefore, coastal managers and decision-makers need to hatch an integrated plan to minimize economic and natural losses, private property damage and tourism infrastructure deterioration from flooding and erosion episodes, which will most likely be intensified in the future.