“This project, within the USGS Coastal and Marine Geology Program’s National Assessment, seeks to objectively determine the relative risks due to future sea-level rise for the U.S. Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf of Mexico coasts. Through the use of a coastal vulnerability index, or CVI, the relative risk that physical changes will occur as sea-level rises is quantified based on the following criteria: tidal range, wave height, coastal slope, shoreline change, geomorphology, and historical rate of relative sea-level rise. This approach combines a coastal system’s susceptibility to change with its natural ability to adapt to changing environmental conditions, and yields a relative measure of the system’s natural vulnerability to the effects of sea-level rise. The USGS is now involved with the National Park Service applying the CVI to coastal park units.”
National Assessment of Coastal Vulnerability To Sea-Level Rise
