Assessment of Chinese Coastal Vulnerability to Sea-Level Rise

Owing to the effect of the global warming and the sea-level rising, identify the vulnerability of the coast is becoming especially important all over the world. In this paper, we presents an international typical coastal vulnerability index method, construct the Chinese coastal vulnerability index system, and use the Delphi and AHP method for quantitative the weight of each indicator, calculate the Chinese coastal vulnerability index (CVI) value. The international dividing method of coastal vulnerability was adopted to divide the Chinese coast into five grades. The Chinese coastal vulnerability grade distribution was mapped, in order to reflect the space distribution features of Chinese coastal vulnerability. A coastal vulnerability index was calculated by integrating the differentially weighted rank values of the 12 variables, identity analysis by GIS, based on which the coastline is classified into 5 grades. The results show that, 12.88% of the Chinese coast is under very high vulnerability, 29.80% high, 25.50% moderate, 24.62% low, 7.20% in the very low vulnerable level. The high-level vulnerable areas are mainly distributed in the coastal delta plains.