Quantifying errors in long-term coastal erosion and inundation hazard assessments

As assessments of long-term coastal erosion and inundation hazards become more widespread due to observations of climate change impacts, the methods used to make these assessments are coming under increased scrutiny. Using observations from the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southern France, this study estimates errors associated with the evaluation of potential coastal erosion and inundation due to sea level rise. Three independent error analyses are completed addressing the impacts of variability in sea level rise predictions, evaluations of long-term coastal evolution, and the quality of available topographic data. The results are presented for the Languedoc-Roussillon site, demonstrating the need for high resolution topographic data, estimations of a range of probable sea level rise values, and expert evaluation of probable coastal evolution scenarios. The applied methods are generalized to be applicable at additional study sites.