For the Instructor

These student materials complement the Coastal Processes, Hazards and Society Instructor Materials. If you would like your students to have access to the student materials, we suggest you either point them at the Student Version which omits the framing pages with information designed for faculty (and this box). Or you can download these pages in several formats that you can include in your course website or local Learning Managment System. Learn more about using, modifying, and sharing InTeGrate teaching materials.

Initial Publication Date: December 7, 2016

Compare Cities

Activate Your Learning!

You will receive answers when you press the Check My Answers button. There is no credit for this activity, but you are expected to understand the principles (i.e., don't learn the ranking or the data) for quizzes and midterms.

World Bank Study – Ranking coastal cities according to risk of coastal flooding

In the report published in the journal Nature Climate Change in 2013, authors from the World Bank and other institutions created a ranking system for vulnerability of coastal cities around the world. In the report, the authors "provide a quantification of present and future flood losses in the 136 largest coastal cities". (Hallegatte et al, 2013).

The measure used for ranking is Average Annual Loss (caused by flooding). If the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a measure of wealth, of the community is factored in, this changes the ranking.

Several factors must be taken into account to calculate a city's vulnerability and to project this vulnerability into the future. These include the wealth of the city's country, relative sea level rise in the area, climate change projections, population projections, and the measures taken to protect the city from flooding. These factors will be studied in more detail later in the course. In this module, we will explore some of the data from the above referenced report and take a look at the cities that rank in the top 10 of the 136 cities at risk of coastal flooding. We will use Google Earth to "travel" to these cities to learn what makes them vulnerable.

Those cities with lower GDP have greater % of GDP affected by flood loss. Several factors must be taken into account to calculate a city's vulnerability and to project this vulnerability into the future. These include:

the wealth of the city's country (GDP);
relative sea level rise in the area;
population and population growth trends;
property values;
flood protection measures;
storm frequency in the area.

These factors will be studied in more detail later in the course. In this module, we will explore some of the data from the above referenced report and take a look at the cities that rank in the top 10 of the 136 cities at risk of coastal flooding.

You will use Google Earth to "travel" to at least two of these cities to learn what makes them vulnerable. You will also use GeoMapp App to examine elevation profiles of case study cities.

Activity: World Bank Study – Ranking of coastal cities' vulnerability to coastal flooding

To prepare for the Module 1 assessments on the following pages, go to the following link. Within this link, you can scroll through to look at the map showing the cities listed on the table below as well as the map of cities projected to rank in the top 20 in 2050.

Article: Which Coastal Cities Are at Highest Risk of Damaging Floods? New Study Crunches the Numbers

The two lists of the top 10 of 136 coastal cities ranked in order of vulnerability.
List A - City - Overall Cost (Average Annual Loss)	AAL (US$ Million)	List B - City - AAL as of % of City GDP	AAL as % of GDP
1. Guangzhou, China	687	1.Guangzhou, China	1.32
2. Miami, USA	672	2. New Orleans, USA	1.21
3. New York, USA	628	3. Guayaquil, Ecuador	.95
4. New Orleans, USA	507	4. Ho Chi Min City, Vietnam	.74
5. Mumbai, India	284	5. Abidjan, Ivory Coast	.72
6. Nagoya, Japan	260	6. Zhanjing, China	.50
7. Tampa, USA	244	7. Mumbai, India	.47
8. Boston, USA	237	8. Khulna, Bangladesh	.43
9. Shenzhen, China	169	9. Palemang, Indonesia	.39
10. Osaka, Japan	120	10. Shenzhen, China	.38

In List A, the top four cities alone (3 of which are in the US) account for 43% of the forecast total global losses. Highlighted in red are the cities that appear on both lists.