Global warming impact on transitional coastal environments: a methodology for knowledge-based management and decision making

Resumen

This Thesis combines a set of very innovative techniques available separately in the field of Coastal Engineering while inheriting the advance in knowledge through the work of the Environmental Fluid Dynamics Group to address one of the main challenges that coastal managers and stakeholders will have to face along the next decades, especially in transitional coastal environments. This challenge consists of anticipating whether current flood defenses will be sufficient against global warming. Moreover, if they are not, this Thesis addresses the question of where and when flood defense will fail and by how much from a global, local, multivariate, and probabilistic approach. The presented methodology in this Thesis is structured in three main blocks: the definition of the problem, the characterization and transfer of the natural forcing agents from the boundary to the transitional system, and the critical analysis of the results. In the first block (definition of the problem), the conceptual framework of the problem, together with the main hypothesis considered are defined. This block also defines the case study area used in this Thesis. After the theoretical development, continuos and progressive examples of application in each step of the presented methodology are shown. In this Thesis, the Guadalete estuary (Cádiz, SouthWestern Spain) is selected as a representative example of transitional areas of southern Europe, considered among the most complex areas for management due to the interactions between natural agents with different scales and periods, human interventions, and many stakeholders involved with different socioeconomic interests.