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• Published: 01 March 2024

Climate threats to coastal infrastructure and sustainable development outcomes

• Daniel Adshead   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0829-925X 1 , 2 ,
• Amelie Paszkowski   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3199-0858 2 ,
• Sarah S. Gall   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4676-4519 2 ,
• Alison M. Peard   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3054-2612 2 ,
• Mohammed Sarfaraz Gani Adnan   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-7276-1891 3 , 4 ,
• Jasper Verschuur   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5277-4353 2 &
• Jim W. Hall   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2024-9191 2  

Nature Climate Change volume  14 ,  pages 344–352 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

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• Climate-change adaptation
• Climate-change impacts
• Developing world
• Environmental impact

An Author Correction to this article was published on 11 March 2024

This article has been updated

Climate hazards pose increasing threats to development outcomes across the world’s coastal regions by impacting infrastructure service delivery. Using a high-resolution dataset of 8.2 million households in Bangladesh’s coastal zone, we assess the extent to which infrastructure service disruptions induced by flood, cyclone and erosion hazards can thwart progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Results show that climate hazards potentially threaten infrastructure service access to all households, with the poorest being disproportionately threatened in 69% of coastal subdistricts. Targeting adaptation to these climatic threats in one-third (33%) of the most vulnerable areas could help to safeguard 50–85% of achieved progress towards SDG 3, 4, 7, 8 and 13 indicators. These findings illustrate the potential of geospatial climate risk analyses, which incorporate direct household exposure and essential service access. Such high-resolution analyses are becoming feasible even in data-scarce parts of the world, helping decision-makers target and prioritize pro-poor development.

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Climate hazards are projected to have a disproportionate impact on poor and vulnerable people and communities 1 . This is a consequence, among others, of poorer people living in more exposed locations (‘exposure bias’) 2 , 3 . The exposure and vulnerability of poor communities can become exacerbated over time through cycles of repeated climate impacts 4 , 5 , which can prevent the accumulation of assets and chronically impact health, education and employment opportunities, and drive temporary or permanent out-migration of people and their resources. This type of ‘poverty trap’ may lead to chronic declines in welfare at a range of scales, which has been documented across regions 6 , 7 , 8 including in coastal Bangladesh 9 , which is on the ‘frontline’ of climate change and its associated effects—the focus area of this study.

Given the potential for climate extremes to adversely impact people and their wider development opportunities, national development plans may be thrown off course by climate impacts 10 , 11 . Targeted interventions focused on the most vulnerable can help to alleviate these harmful dynamics. However, given inevitably scarce resources and the potential for misallocation, these interventions need to be informed by spatial analyses on climate risks and vulnerabilities, as well as their interactions across socioeconomic systems 12 , 13 , 14 . Thus far, however, the linking of high-resolution spatial vulnerability mapping with hazard, exposure and sustainable development objectives is incomplete.

Social vulnerability has been mapped geospatially and integrated with flood risk management assessment at the local and municipal scales 15 , 16 , as well as at the national and global scales 1 . However, the impacts of climate hazards, especially flooding, erosion and other geomorphological changes, can (1) be sensitive to the exact location of vulnerable households, requiring high-resolution geolocated household-level data; and (2) depend not only on households’ locations but also on their access to essential services, such as hospitals and electricity, which are fundamental to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Currently, there is a lack of reliable high-resolution data to distinguish local and regional vulnerability differences 17 , 18 . This lack of detailed information can explain the discrepancies in estimates of climate risks, for example, in river floodplains 19 and coastal zones 20 , which can undermine efforts to target adaptation towards the most vulnerable.

The SDGs endeavour to provide a complete and universally applicable assessment framework for development progress. Several studies have examined at an aggregated scale how cross-cutting development interventions (for example, in infrastructure systems, green energy, climate action and other areas 21 , 22 , 23 ) can contribute to several SDGs. It is also recognized that appropriate and measurable indicators are needed to drive more-targeted development planning and adaptation strategies within the SDG framework 24 , 25 , 26 . Recent national-scale applications of such approaches demonstrate how resilience needs can be identified across a nation’s built and natural assets, and how strategic interventions can be evaluated in relation to a national development vision informed by the SDGs 27 , 28 , 29 .

Local risks to development progress in coastal Bangladesh

Here we illustrate how geolocated household data can be used in data-scarce locations to obtain new insights about climatic threats to sustainable development. We assess these vulnerabilities through the lens of infrastructure service delivery and its role in achieving the SDGs in coastal Bangladesh 30 . Bangladesh is situated in a global hotspot of climate hazards, with more than 80% of its land area consisting of floodplain lands 31 . Frequent and intense fluvial, pluvial and tidal flooding, cyclonic winds and associated storm surges, and widespread riverbank and coastal erosion impact the country on an annual basis 32 , 33 , 34 . The repeated damages and disruptions to infrastructure networks as a result of these multiple hazards place a heavy burden on the country’s economic growth, social resilience and progress towards achieving the SDGs 35 . In coastal Bangladesh, particularly in rural areas, inadequate infrastructure services hamper human development and slow down resilience efforts in the face of hazard impacts 36 . However, the understanding of household-level infrastructure service disruption resulting from the threats of climatic hazards remains limited, with previous efforts mainly focusing on constructing risk 37 and resilience metrics to assess hazard threats to infrastructure. In Bangladesh, the SDG Working Committee of the Prime Minister’s Office, supported by all relevant government ministries, has defined 39 priority indicators (NPTs) to measure progress towards key SDG targets ( https://sdg.gov.bd/ ), which have informed the geospatial analysis in this study. Directly addressing five of these indicators, we bring together national-scale geospatial data on climate hazards and infrastructure assets with high-resolution household data to assess localized risks to SDG achievement by means of disruptions to infrastructure service provision caused by one or multiple climate hazards (see Methods ). Notably, we assess household access to these essential services, quantifying not only the exposure of households but also potential disruption to services upon which they depend.

We first assess the exposure of coastal Bangladesh’s infrastructure service provision to climate hazards by intersecting river and coastal flooding, cyclone and erosion hazard maps (for the present day, as well as for future scenarios of river and coastal flooding) with critical infrastructure asset and network data relevant to subsequent assessments of SDG attainment (Fig. 1 , top left and right; see Methods ). The exposure analysis makes use of a synthetic household dataset that associates realistic socioeconomic household characteristics (such as electrification, employment and educational achievement) with the location of households (for example, using population density maps), which have been validated by independent household surveys 38 . Further survey data and geospatial analysis is used to develop a spatial proxy of socioeconomic household ‘wealth’ groups (which are divided into quintiles; see Methods ) and their levels of infrastructure access in the coastal zone of Bangladesh. We analyse the whole coastal region of Bangladesh (150 subdistricts, locally termed as ‘upazilas’, across 19 coastal districts, with a total population of ~35 million people 39 ) and assess infrastructure service delivery for individual households, developing climate risk profiles that quantify the extent of household exposure to multiple hazards (Fig. 1 , bottom left).

Key climate hazards (top left) are intersected with critical infrastructure asset and network data (top right). Climate risk profiles quantifying the extent of potential household disruption of various infrastructure services are determined at the upazila scale (local subdistrict) (bottom left). Household-level socioeconomic data are used to assess current development progress and future impacts of climate threats on the government’s priority SDG indicators (bottom right).

Woven throughout this process is Bangladesh’s sustainable development vision. We downscale current performance against relevant national targets to the local (upazila) level and utilize household-level data on socioeconomic characteristics and access to services to reveal the spatial landscape of current progress towards the selected targets (Fig. 1 , bottom right). By linking asset service delivery at the household level and their exposure to various hazard scenarios, we can assess the potential impacts of hazards on SDG progress in relation to some of the government’s overall development targets.

Household service ‘exposure bias’ to climate hazards

This analysis focuses on the disruption to cyclone shelters, education facilities, market centres, healthcare facilities and electricity substations, selected for their relevance to the subsequent analysis on SDG target achievement (Supplementary Fig. 1 also includes the road network). For coastal and riverine flooding, we consider a household disrupted if its nearest asset is exposed to more than 1 m of flooding (see Methods ). All 8.2 million households in the coastal region of Bangladesh are exposed to some disruption of essential infrastructure services caused by climate hazards. For a baseline 1-in-50-year hazard, coastal flooding (including storm surges), riverine flooding and cyclones (wind damage) are expected to disrupt on average 39.5%, 22.7% and 94.5%, respectively, of the coastal population across all infrastructure services. Erosion is estimated to have disrupted 56% of the coastal population across all infrastructure services cumulatively since 1987. It is important to note that these climate hazards (for example, cyclonic winds and floods) can occur simultaneously, leading to more severe compound impacts, which are not considered in this study.

For combinations of each hazard and asset type, we calculate the proportion of households in each upazila and wealth quintile exposed to potential disruptions to services in the event of a 1-in-50-year hazard for a present-day scenario and in the case of flooding for the year 2030 under Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5. Figure 2 displays coastal flooding exposure for the 1-in-50-year event for 2030 (RCP 4.5), showing the expected proportion of households disrupted in the median socioeconomic quintile (left), and the statistically significant poverty bias (middle) and wealth bias (right) relative to this median quintile. As evident, the main effects of coastal flooding are concentrated in the low-lying Khulna and Barisal divisions and in the coastal southern half of the Chittagong division. The prevalence of coastal flooding in the southern part of Chittagong reflects the strong winds and waves in this region, both with south westerly directions 40 , 41 which pushes water directly onshore.

For each of the five infrastructure service types, the panels show the spatial distribution of service exposure to a 1-in-50-year coastal flood event under a 2030 RCP 4.5 scenario in terms of proportion of households affected per upazila (see Supplementary Fig. 1 for equivalent results for other hazards, including the road network). The left panel shows the proportion of households in the median wealth quintile exposed to coastal flooding through service disruption. The centre and right panels show the relative risk (risk ratio) of household exposure for the poorer (centre) and wealthier (right) quintiles relative to the median quintile. Relative risks are only shown for upazilas where the difference between exposure proportions between quintiles was found to be statistically significant at the 95% confidence level.

Across the entire coastal region, a mild but consistent pattern shows that poor households are more exposed to infrastructure service disruptions from coastal flooding than wealthier socioeconomic groups. For cyclone shelters, market centres, education and health facilities, we see a statistically significant poverty bias. In the case of education facilities, the poor population is 1.07 times and 1.13 times more likely to be exposed to education disruption than the median or wealthiest groups, respectively. We see similar risk ratios for health facilities (1.07), market centres (1.02) and cyclone shelters (1.24) between the poorest and wealthiest population groups. In the case of substations, however, this risk ratio is 0.989, indicating that the wealthiest group is 1.01 times more likely to be affected by disruption to electricity substations due to coastal flooding. This wealth bias is probably due to substations in the Patiya and Hathazari upazilas in the Chittagong division being particularly exposed to flooding near the Karnaphuli river, which predominantly serve wealthier households (60–70%) (Supplementary Fig. 1e ).

When assessing exposure to any climate hazard disrupting any infrastructure service, a statistically significant poverty bias is observed in 104 upazilas, equivalent to 69% of the coastal region of Bangladesh. Focusing on coastal flooding alone, a poverty bias in disruptions affecting at least one of the five asset types is observed in 35 (23.33%) of the 150 coastal upazilas. Twelve and two upazilas respectively exhibit poverty bias for two or three asset types. The upazilas showing poverty bias across three asset types are Chakaria (southeast Chittagong) and Jhalokati Sadar (northwest Barisal), showing poverty bias for education and market centres, as well as cyclone shelters (Chakaria) and health facilities (Jhalokati Sadar). Across the five infrastructure asset types, disruptions to education facilities show the most widespread poverty bias, with 17 upazilas largely centred in low-lying regions around the Meghna River but also in the Khulna and Chittagong divisions showing poverty biases between 1.008 (Bhandaria) and 1.4 (Kotwali). It is in these critical upazilas where most action is needed to strengthen the service that existing infrastructure systems provide, as well as where the connectivity and accessibility to improved services must be most urgently enhanced to withstand future coastal flood events. The largest absolute number of poorer households expected to be disrupted in any upazila (wealth quintiles 1–3) is in Patuakhali Sadar, where 381,680 households are exposed to substation disruptions due to coastal flooding.

Safeguarding SDG target achievement

Next, we consider the SDG progress that has been achieved across several of Bangladesh’s national priority indicators and how infrastructure service disruption as a result of climatic hazards may negatively affect it. Using household-level data, we can estimate current SDG achievement at the local level for five indicators directly linked to infrastructure services provided to households for each of the sectors included in this study (see ‘Household infrastructure service accessibility and the SDGs’ in Methods ). In the absence of appropriate resilience measures, areas that currently have higher levels of SDG achievement are at greater risk of declines in this progress due to hazard impacts on infrastructure services. Areas with lower levels of SDG progress also benefit from an understanding of the spatial nature of hazard exposure in relation to local populations lacking appropriate infrastructure services.

SDG target achievement ‘at risk’ is shown in Fig. 3 , with darker-shaded upazilas facing more potential disruption to achieved SDG progress due to the hazard. Coastal flooding has the greatest potential disruptive impact on SDG 7 (electrification) progress (as the dominant hazard in 51 upazilas), with river flooding particularly impacting SDGs 3 (health) and 4 (education) (dominant in 41 and 40 upazilas, respectively). Erosion hazards impact especially SDG 3 (dominant in 55 upazilas). Potential cyclone disruption to infrastructure services is particularly widespread across the region, showing impacts on health (SDG 3), education (SDG 4), electrification (SDG 7) and economic (SDG 8) indicators in most upazilas. While shelters are built to withstand cyclonic wind gusts, they are also exposed to coastal flooding and erosion hazards; thus, SDG 13 (limiting climate change impacts) progress remains particularly vulnerable throughout many upazilas bordering the coast. Outcomes related to household electrification, health and school access are exposed to varying levels of risk to coastal and river flooding and erosion, depending on the local SDG performance already achieved.

Darker shades indicate greater levels of SDG achievement at risk. The cumulative column (far right) shows the dominant hazard most affecting the representative SDG indicator in each upazila. The cumulative row (bottom) denotes the SDG most threatened by each type of hazard, based on its current progress level and magnitude of potential exposure to the hazard. Note: cyclone shelters are purpose-built to withstand cyclone winds, hence their exposure to cyclones is not considered a threat to progress towards the SDG 13 indicator (directly affected persons); they are, however, considered vulnerable to impacts of coastal and river flooding and erosion.

Figure 4 illustrates that policymakers aiming to prioritize resilience measures can begin to see notable impacts when focusing on only a few key areas, although these vary according to the hazard. For each of the four hazards, upazilas are ranked in descending order by their average SDG progress at risk across each of the five targets assessed here. SDG progress at risk refers to the extent to which regional target achievement would decline if hazards were to disrupt infrastructure services. For coastal flood hazards, measures to enhance the resilience of infrastructure services could safeguard 15–20% of SDG progress when only 10 upazilas (6.6% of the coastal region) are targeted, depending on the SDG; when 50 upazilas (33%) are targeted, this SDG safeguarding rises to approximately two-thirds (60–70%). In 117 upazilas (78%), over 99% of current progress across all targets can be protected. Without such safeguards, measured SDG progress in the region could see a substantial decline due to infrastructure service exposure to climatic hazards.

Top: progress towards safeguarding current SDG achievement from coastal flooding. Bottom: progress towards safeguarding current SDG achievement from river flooding, cyclones and erosion hazards. For the bottom panels, labels for the x and y axes are the same as those of the top panel. Upazilas are ranked along the horizontal axis according to their SDG progress at risk in descending order. The vertical axis shows the additional benefit, in terms of average SDG progress in the region, of resilience measures to protect hazard-exposed infrastructure service provision in each additional upazila across the five subsectors considered in these results. Each upazila’s contributions to overall (regional) SDG progress has been weighted by population. By targeting a limited number of upazilas along the x axis, policymakers can expect to see a disproportionately positive improvement in SDG progress, depending on the specific indicator and climate hazard considered. As we do not factor in resilience measures that may already have been implemented, this quantification of SDG progress at risk is based on a worst-case scenario where all exposed assets are considered to cause household disruptions.

For river flooding, corresponding numbers are 21–30% (10 upazilas) and 76–85% (50 upazilas), while 99% is achieved with resilience measures in 114 upazilas. Cyclone resilience across the relevant infrastructures safeguards 15–19% of SDG progress (10 upazilas) and 50–56% (50 upazilas), while nearly all (149) require some intervention to achieve 99% protection. Coastal erosion resilience can safeguard 19–21% (10 upazilas), 52–60% (50 upazilas) and 99% with measures in 141 upazilas. We also note differences in cumulative protection between infrastructure types due to spatial variations in hazard exposure. Electricity access (SDG 7), for example, requires more widespread resilience planning to protect against coastal flooding than against river flooding, which is more spatially limited in its potential disruption of substations.

To fully achieve the government’s SDG targets, new infrastructure will also have to be built across the coastal region and the rest of Bangladesh to reach populations that are underserved, not connected or unable to benefit from infrastructure services due to a lack of proximity. Estimates from our household dataset suggest that the share of these households can be substantial in the coastal region, reflected in survey responses and/or with households geolocated outside the distance thresholds required to reasonably access services from the nearest asset. For example, 46% of households report no access to electricity across the region, while 18% are further than 5 km from their nearest healthcare facility. Aggregating household access rates across the 150 upazilas, we observe locations across the region where resilient new infrastructure should be targeted to reach these underserved populations.

Although this infrastructure is yet to be built, intersecting these areas with high-resolution spatial hazard data can inform the spatial planning of assets to achieve national SDG priorities (shown for coastal flooding hazards in Fig. 5 ). Notably, we can visualize where these new infrastructures will be less at-risk (darker grey) and where resilience measures should be prioritized (darker blue) to ensure effective service delivery from the built asset to households. In the case of cyclone shelters, this also indicates that cyclone and associated coastal flood exposure extend into parts of the region where fewer shelters are recorded. For all other infrastructure service provision, low accessibility intersects with high exposure in the Meghna Estuary and the south-western upazilas of coastal Bangladesh.

Intersecting coastal flood hazard exposure (30 × 30 m resolution) with existing infrastructure service access, determined by household survey responses or proximity thresholds aggregated by upazila. Dark blue areas show where infrastructure access is low and hazard exposure is high (that is, the critical areas), while white areas show where both infrastructure access and hazard exposure are of less critical concern. Dark shades of grey indicate where households have low levels of access to infrastructure services but are not highly exposed to coastal flooding and light blue areas indicate where there is high exposure to coastal flooding but household access to services is high. The Sundarbans Reserve Forest is shown in green. Equivalent maps for river flooding, cyclones and erosion are included in Supplementary Fig. 2 .

Sustainable development achievement in coastal Bangladesh

Patterns of exposure to climate hazards in coastal Bangladesh are complex, but by using high-resolution geospatial analysis, we can begin to identify where poorer households’ access to essential services is disproportionately impacted by climate-related hazards. The tendency for poorer households to be more exposed in parts of coastal Bangladesh reflects several interacting factors, including typically highly resource-dependent livelihoods, insecure land ownership and an uneven distribution of accessibility to land, less capacity to migrate to cities where incomes are on average higher, land degradation linked to previous hazards and a lack of protective infrastructure, among others 42 , 43 . For instance, gradual increases in soil salinity and/or chronic waterlogging have impacted agricultural production, damaging the livelihoods of the marginal coastal population 44 . A limited capacity to relocate may reinforce this continued exposure to a greater intensity of climate hazards, which continues to pose challenges for development. In addition, disparities in the provision of infrastructure services across more and less exposed areas in this region during different phases of climate extremes—before, during and after such events—act as impediments to the resilience of coastal communities 36 .

Where national resources are limited, the results presented in this study provide means for investment prioritization, extending previous methodological development for infrastructure prioritization based on similar but less extensive household data in the same region 45 . For instance, our results indicate that market centres’ exposure to coastal flooding, cyclones and erosion may be an obstacle to achieving SDG 8 and would be further exacerbated by disruptions to the road network. Improving access to market centres by constructing new roads or enhancing existing ones could promote economic activity in the coastal region and lessen poverty 46 . In addition, purpose-built cyclone shelters are highly important to larger areas of the coastal region and should be located within short distances to settlements to be effective. We have quantitatively shown that the programme of constructing cyclone shelters has been targeting the poorest and most disadvantaged populations, and accordingly is widely regarded for its effectiveness in reducing cyclone fatalities 47 . It is important to note, however, that the results presented in this study should be interpreted with care since local realities are highly nuanced. Different infrastructure assets may be able to withstand differing levels of hazard exposure, while disruption magnitude may be caused by various structural factors and may reverberate further along the network than the local area. New and evolving resilience metrics and risk mitigation approaches for different types of infrastructure, such as roads 48 , electricity grids 49 and water supply 50 , can inform solutions and investments at the local scale.

To address the identified exposure biases, a range of resilience measures targeted to the unique characteristics of local populations should be developed and planned at local levels. This can benefit from quantitative analyses such as these, alongside more in-depth qualitative assessments within local communities. A knowledge of existing resilience-enhancement measures at each asset, local or community level and an understanding of their ability to protect households from disruptions will complement the upazila prioritization approach used here.

High-resolution measurement of spatial SDG attainment

Typically, SDG achievement is reported nationally, with performance aggregated across a country’s diverse geographical and socioeconomic strata. Mechanisms for SDG target-setting can often be vague and not amenable to downscaling at the local level 51 . This study demonstrates the future potential of bottom-up measurement of SDG progress that can be directly linked to climate hazards to assess and improve upon key sustainable development indicators.

In this and other contexts, additional SDG targets can be incorporated in the same way with adequate provision of geospatial data on other relevant infrastructures, extending to water treatment plants, distribution networks and access points (for example, wells and boreholes) (SDG 6), road and rail networks (SDGs 9 and 11), waste treatment facilities (SDG 12), and civil and government buildings (SDG 16). Climate-related hazards that are more relevant in other parts of the world (for example, droughts, wildfires and storms) can be integrated or substituted into this assessment approach, as disruptions are being measured by critical asset exposure.

Mainstreaming spatial hazard analysis into policy

There is great potential for data-driven geospatial analysis to inform adaptation investment decisions at the local level. While high-resolution household data are difficult to obtain in many contexts, emerging methods around spatial microsimulation and dasymetric modelling 52 , complemented by increasingly advanced satellite technology and remote sensing, can provide decision-makers with a precise toolkit to inform infrastructure and development decisions.

To reach its full potential in a national policy planning context however, this type of analysis must be integrated into existing government systems and processes. In the case of Bangladesh, the Mujib Climate Prosperity Plan serves as a national roadmap for climate resilience seeking to counteract climate-induced damage and losses, strengthening employment, promoting well-being and securing energy independence while supporting delivery of the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. A comprehensive streamlining process with identified entry points in relevant government agencies and ministries should be undertaken in parallel for this type of analysis to be most effective.

The delivery date for the Sustainable Development Goals is rapidly approaching; however, major achievement gaps remain across most countries. These gaps are at risk of growing as climate hazards intensify in many parts of the world. Existing national targets do not always adopt a pro-poor approach to achieving the SDGs or consider exposure bias in vulnerable communities. As a result, these populations are at a higher risk of failing to reach target thresholds, even as national development progress improves overall. We show that novel geospatial data techniques can assist policymakers in understanding localized climate hazard threats to the achievement of national SDG targets through their impacts on vulnerable populations. This approach is particularly relevant in other similarly data-scarce parts of the world, where decision-makers can target and prioritize pro-poor development, accelerating informed sustainable development at scale.

The study was conducted according to the following methodological components: (1) creation of a database 53 including (i) relevant climate hazard scenario data from national or global datasets and (ii) point and network data for critical infrastructure and social sector locations; (2) use of high-resolution household survey data to identify dependence on infrastructure assets at a granular scale through nearest-neighbour analysis; (3) assignment of households to wealth quintiles based on household survey responses; (4) calculation of statistically significant exposure biases across different wealth quintiles; and (5) calculation of SDG progress downscaled to the local administrative level through household survey responses and proximity to services, and identification of climate threats to progress based on asset exposure.

Spatial database of climate hazard and infrastructure risks

The study area was defined as the 19 districts comprising Bangladesh’s coastal region, which were further divided into 150 smaller administrative regions, known as upazilas, based on a recent World Bank report 39 .

Climate hazards

For coastal and riverine flooding, data from the World Resources Institute ‘Aqueduct Floods’ online platform was obtained 54 , which include both tidal inundation as well as storm-surge-induced coastal flooding. The dataset measures flood risks for the baseline year (1980) and projections to 2030, 2050 and 2080. These scenarios are provided for return periods for 2, 10, 25, 50 and 100 years for Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) 4.5 (realistic) and 8.5 (extreme) at a resolution of 30 arc seconds (about 1 km × 1 km). For cyclone hazards, maximum wind gusts (in m s −1 ) are based on a probability distribution derived from ensemble resimulations of 12 historical cyclones from return period event maps at a resolution of 4.4 km 40 . For erosion hazards, an erosion map was created using the DeepWaterMap model 55 , 56 , which is based on satellite imagery from the past 35 years and has a resolution of 30 m × 30 m. The DeepWaterMap model automatically distinguishes land from water, and thus tracks morphological changes over time; ref. 55 provides further information on the model and its validation in coastal Bangladesh. Here we extract all pixels that have experienced erosion at any point in the last 35 years. Given the focus on past cyclones and erosion events, these two datasets do not entail future hazard scenarios. Although there is a discrepancy in the scenarios and timeframes covered by the different climate hazard datasets, at present there are no models that simulate cyclonic wind gusts and erosion trends for the same scenarios and timeframes as river and coastal flooding. Thus, for the purpose of this multihazard assessment, analyses were undertaken for all four hazards, but their differing temporal resolutions are caveated where appropriate. Finally, despite not undertaking an uncertainty analysis of these hazard layers, we ensured that all input data have previously been validated; for example, the cyclone hazard layer was validated using past cyclone events 40 , the erosion layer was validated in coastal Bangladesh 55 , synthetic household data were validated against household surveys 38 .

Infrastructure data

Point and network data for the energy sector as well as critical social infrastructure assets were obtained from a mix of publicly available and Bangladesh Government sources: Power Division and BPDB (electricity); Water Resources Planning Organization (WARPO) (market centres); Department of Health (healthcare facilities); Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) (cyclone shelters); and Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (educational facilities). We gathered and verified this data through a series of workshops, dialogues and stakeholder meetings held in 2022. These events were collaboratively organized by the Department of Environment (DoE) in Bangladesh, the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), and the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS). The close collaboration with CEGIS ensured that the most up-to-date information was being collected 30 . The geospatially located critical infrastructure assessed here included 113 electricity substations, 2,062 market centres, 3,086 healthcare facilities, 3,777 cyclone shelters and 73,814 educational institutions.

Each layer of infrastructure asset and network data was then intersected with all climate hazards to determine the exposure of infrastructure service provision under each scenario, including the estimated flood depth in metres.

Infrastructure service provision to coastal households

To assess the potential impacts of infrastructure service disruptions on households in the coastal region, three categories of data were combined: climate hazards, infrastructure asset data (as described above) and household characteristics. Household-level population data were obtained from the World Bank 38 as part of a spatially explicit synthetic household dataset for the coastal region of Bangladesh, which includes unique structural and socioeconomic attributes mapped to the local level and validated by independent household surveys. This includes household-level information on, among other things, access to electricity, tap water and sanitation, housing type, literacy, education levels and employment.

We conducted a nearest-neighbour analysis to link each household to its nearest service-providing asset for each subsector, thus estimating the household profiles (characteristics) dependent on each infrastructure asset. Service area estimation can be achieved through various methods, such as accessibility mapping using the road network 57 or conducting a sample of household surveys 36 to determine actual receipt of services. Here we used a simpler radius-based approach due to several factors including: (1) road network data for the coastal region of Bangladesh being not well-connected enough to allow for routing and unavailability of up-to-date information on the quality of roads; and (2) household positions in the synthetic dataset being represented in clusters which, while geographically accurate to the local district, do not represent exact positions, leading routing to be inherently inaccurate and less interesting. This simplified approach allowed the assignment of households to assets at the scale of the entire coastal region.

Only households reporting access to the corresponding service were included, and where these could not be determined from the survey, households were considered not to have access when they fell outside of a distance threshold (5 km for health centres, 1.6 km for cyclone shelters, see section ‘Household infrastructure service accessibility and the SDGs’). Using the intersection of hazard and asset data as described above, the exposure of households was determined for each scenario on the basis of its supposed use of or connection to the nearest assigned asset. Based on in-country stakeholder feedback, the scenario chosen for this part of the analysis was a 1-in-50-year event for a time period of 2030 under RCP 4.5. This scenario was applied to the two flood hazards (coastal and fluvial flooding), while the hazards of erosion and cyclones were based on historical data with no simulations of future scenarios.

Household assignment to wealth quintiles

To estimate relative household wealth levels, we constructed a wealth index using several infrastructure access variables included in the available household dataset, in line with that created in ref. 45 for coastal Bangladesh. This approach provides a more objective proxy of household wealth than common variables such as income or consumption, which can be hard to measure accurately in low-income settings due to their variable or short-term nature, or the informal nature of much of the economy. The index was constructed separately for households identified as urban and rural due to differences in underlying variables between urban and rural dwellers (for example, electricity being more common in urban areas). Table 1 lists the variables that were used to construct the wealth index.

The data were first normalized, after which we ran a principal component analysis in line with the approach of creating a wealth index used by WFP-FAO 58 . The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy showed values of 0.62 for rural dwellers and 0.71 for urban dwellers, which are above the minimum acceptable value of 0.6. The first principal component explained ~40% of the variance and was used to construct the wealth index. We separated the indexed households into quintiles, which ranged from the poorest (Q1) to the wealthiest (Q5) quintile.

Calculating statistically significant exposure bias

To explore and quantify whether there were poverty or wealth biases in the exposure of households to climate disruptions to infrastructure services, the risk ratio was calculated. This quantifies how much more likely a household in a given wealth group is to experience service disruption due to a hazard relative to the median wealth group. Such biases were then tested for statistical significance following typical hypothesis-testing procedures as outlined below. Only relative risks that were significantly different from those of the median group at the 95% confidence level were considered in this analysis.

Given two populations of size \(n\) and \(m\) with respective \({X}_{1}\) and \({X}_{0}\) households disrupted due to a climate hazard, the proportion of successes (number of households exposed to disruption in this case) is given by \({p}_{1}=\frac{{X}_{1}}{n}\) and \({p}_{0}=\frac{{X}_{0}}{m}\) . We can understand these to be samples from two binomial distributions Bin( \({p}_{1}\) , \(n\) ) and Bin( \({p}_{0}\) , \(m\) ). If the underlying probability of disruption is the same for both populations, then \({p}_{1}={p}_{0}\) . A. hypothesis test for this has the form,

The standard, normally distributed test statistic for this hypothesis test is given by,

and we used a critical \(z\) -score of ±1.96. If our test statistic \(z\) fell outside of this range, we then rejected the null hypothesis of the distributions being the same at the 95% confidence level 59 . We applied this to compare both the poorest (Q1 and Q2) and the wealthiest (Q4 and Q5) population groups to the median wealth group (Q3). Given the large number of households in each upazila (in the order of 100,000 households per upazila), the confidence intervals became quite narrow, meaning that small deviations between the poor/wealthy and median proportion of households affected could produce a statistically significant result.

Household infrastructure service accessibility and the SDGs

This section focused on protecting or ‘safeguarding’ of existing progress towards several SDG indicators by identifying where achieved target levels might be most at risk from climate hazards. The Government of Bangladesh’s SDG Working Committee has drafted prioritized national SDG targets (‘NPTs’) ( https://sdg.gov.bd/ ). First, five targets closely linked to infrastructure service delivery in the sectors addressed in this study were identified; these fell under 5 relevant SDGs (3, 4, 7, 8, 13) and related to the share of the population having access. The targets linked to the water supply and roads subsectors (SDGs 6 and 9) were omitted due to a lack of data on water supply infrastructure and local road types in the synthetic household dataset.

Next, for each of the 150 upazilas in Bangladesh’s 19 coastal districts, detailed survey data from the synthetic household dataset were aggregated to calculate current progress at the upazila level towards each target, on the basis of household responses to questions on access to education (SDG 4), electricity access (SDG 7) and employment (SDG 8). The calculated distance from each household to the nearest asset was further used to estimate access to health centres (SDG 3) and shelters (SDG 13). On the basis of previous studies, thresholds for reasonable access to health services were set at 5 km 60 , 61 , 62 , while access to shelters was set at 1.6 km 63 , 64 . The households outside these thresholds were considered to have ‘no access’.

All connected households in these upazilas were then assigned to the nearest asset within each subsector (substation, school, health centre, market centre and shelter). Households were considered exposed to hazards affecting their nearest asset if the flood exposure to the asset was >1 m (coastal and riverine flooding), if wind gusts were >30 m s −1 (cyclones) or if erosion occurred 43 . Under the following relevant climate scenarios for each of the four assessed hazards, the share of households (or population) in each upazila ‘with current access to the service’ and ‘also facing disruption due to exposure’ to a hazard, was calculated. The scenario in this analysis was based on:

A 2030 timeframe, corresponding to the delivery date of the Sustainable Development Goals.

A 50-year return period and RCP 4.5, based on consultations with local stakeholders.

This measure of ‘progress at risk’ was then calculated as a share of the total target, downscaled from the national scale to each upazila. An example is shown in Supplementary Fig. 3 . The calculations and assumptions in Supplementary Table 2 were used to assess current (upazila-level) progress towards the government’s stated SDG target for each relevant SDG.

Data availability

Data used in this study can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10554713 .

Code availability

Code relevant to the analysis can be accessed at https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/tpjcxtl4j9m9ht0tl0ocq/NCLIM-23071599-code_final.zip?rlkey=ux7du7k4rkru352moob6quwwu&dl=0 .

Change history

11 march 2024.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01974-8

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the Bangladesh Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management Team at the World Bank, in particular S. Kazi and I. Urrutia, for providing the synthetic household data and general support throughout the project. Any views expressed are not necessarily those of or endorsed by the World Bank. We also acknowledge support from the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS), the Global Center on Adaptation (GCA), the Government of Bangladesh, and the Center for Environmental and Geographic Information Services (CEGIS) for assisting with access to data and in-country facilitation. We acknowledge imagery courtesy of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals ( https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment ), although the content of this publication is not endorsed by the United Nations or its officials or the Member States.

Open access funding provided by Royal Institute of Technology.

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D.A., S.S.G. and A.P. contributed to the design of the study. S.S.G., D.A. and J.V. developed methods for the parts of the analysis. S.S.G., A.M.P. and D.A. performed most of the data analysis. D.A. and A.M.P. generated the figures and visualizations used in the manuscript. A.P. and M.S.G.A. contributed to the interpretation of the results. D.A. and A.P. wrote the manuscript. A.M.P., S.S.G., M.S.G.A., J.V. and J.W.H. provided written contributions and advisory feedback. A.P. coordinated the research and most of the stakeholder consultations. All authors reviewed and provided edits on the final manuscript.

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Adshead, D., Paszkowski, A., Gall, S.S. et al. Climate threats to coastal infrastructure and sustainable development outcomes. Nat. Clim. Chang. 14 , 344–352 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-024-01950-2

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Analysis and global research trends on nautical tourism and green coastal infrastructures: the case of coral reefs and seagrass meadows

• José Luis Caparrós-Martínez 1 ,
• Rosa María Martínez-Vázquez 1 &
• Jaime de Pablo Valenciano 1  

Environmental Sciences Europe volume  34 , Article number:  33 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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Metrics details

This article aims to analyse the scientific production related to the impact worldwide of recreational and sports tourism on the conservation and management of coast and marine green infrastructures. To this end, the research focuses on two of the ecosystems, where this type of tourism exerts pressure on a global scale: seagrass meadows and coral reefs. Based on Scopus and WoS databases, different levels of analysis have been carried through the application of bibliometrics to identify the most prevalent topics and future research trends.

The main results are summarised as follows. On the one hand, many publications in the scientific sector analyse how tourism and recreational activity affect specific marine ecosystems, especially coral reefs. On the other hand, the phenomenon of Global Change and the social and environmental effects on marine ecosystems with significant tourism potential have been identified as one of the most studied research topics. Finally, emerging research trends have been identified, including environmental monitoring and tracking programs aimed at controlling tourism, aspects related to the participation of the population and local tourism sectors, and the role of ecotourism in marine protected areas.

Conclusions

In conclusion, a greater commitment from the public administration and a greater social awareness of the ecosystem services it generates is needed. If the species and the natural environment are not conserved and protected, the tourist attractiveness of these areas would be lost and, ultimately, the tourism of the area would change, with the consequent loss of well-being for the whole community.

Introduction

Historically, mainstream economics has not valued the environmental services provided by natural ecosystems. However, recent research shows that the economic value of natural ecosystems, in terms of their contribution to human health and well-being, has an economic value between 10 and 100 times greater than the cost related to its conservation [ 7 , 15 , 34 , given that they are responsible for such important environmental services as climate change protection, food security and reduced risk of environmental disasters and diseases.

Regarding nature-based solutions, green infrastructures take on an enormous role. Green Infrastructure is defined as a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural spaces and other environmental elements designed and managed to offer a wide range of ecosystem services [ 25 ]. This novel term tries to simplify complex ecological concepts related to the functioning of ecosystems and the environmental services they provide, making an analogy between the infrastructure of natural systems and artificial human systems, known as Grey Infrastructure, such as roads, electrical networks, or hydraulic infrastructures.

Green infrastructure is presented as an important resource to achieve and maintain the health of aquatic and coastal ecosystems and offer multiple benefits related to increasing water availability for different uses: water purification, conservation and protection of aquatic biodiversity, as well as adaptation and mitigation of the effects of climate change, such as sea level rise, increased flooding, torrential rains or long periods of drought [ 57 , 68 ].

Based on the Common International Classification of Ecosystem Services (CICES) [ 32 ], these environmental services are divided into three categories:

Provisioning: services that nature provides directly to the population. These are vital for the survival and well-being of society, and a market price is applied to them.

Regulation: services provided by the ecological processes in nature, giving it the necessary resilience to resist or adapt to anthropic pressures.

Cultural: services related to the enjoyment of nature that contribute to human beings' personal or spiritual development.

Green infrastructure includes green spaces and other physical elements in terrestrial (natural, rural and urban) and marine areas [ 25 ]. Marine green infrastructure encompasses multifunctional marine areas of high ecological value, essential for the functioning of the marine ecosystem, as well as for the provision of key environmental services, such as water quality, recreational spaces, climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation [ 62 , 65 ]. On the other hand, the term marine green infrastructure also helps to indicate possible linkages with green infrastructure in coastal areas and on land [ 62 ].

In rural and urban terrestrial areas, the concept of green infrastructure is widely accepted; however, in the marine domain, its application is more novel, due according to certain authors to the scarcity of spatial data and the dynamic nature of the marine ecosystem [ 62 ]. In relation to this, one of the most important challenges is to establish a methodology to analyse the connectivity between marine ecosystems with each other and with terrestrial ecosystems.

The delineation of marine green infrastructure, as with terrestrial green infrastructure, can encompass several criteria that characterise the marine ecosystem, its biological values, its functionality and the provision of services.

Coastal and marine green infrastructures, such as coral reefs and seagrass meadows, two of the marine ecosystems that receive the most pressure from nautical and recreational activities, such as sport diving on a global scale [ 10 , 37 ], provide key environmental services for the well-being and development of the world's coastal and littoral populations (Table 1 ). Coral reefs and seagrass meadows provide a series of critical environmental services, such as the protection and defence of coastal populations against increasingly common extreme weather events (devastating rains and floods) linked to climate change, serving as a refuge and breeding areas for marine species which are of interest to the fishing industry, and the mitigation of the greenhouse effect through the fixation of organic carbon (blue carbon) [ 53 , 72 , 75 ].

However, the increasing human pressure on most touristic coastal areas is causing a deterioration of their natural resources and marine habitats, as well as a loss and deterioration of the essential environmental services provided by marine ecosystems, such as coral reefs and seagrass beds.

Recreational and tourist services are particularly important, because they represent one of the primary sources of job creation and economic development in coastal regions worldwide. According to the World Tourism Organisation, 80% of international tourism takes place in coastal areas, more than 183 countries have coastlines, and 37% of the world's population lives in coastal regions [ 74 ].

To address the study of global research trends on the sustainability of nautical and recreational tourism and its effects on marine green infrastructures precisely, this bibliometric analysis has focused on two of the most fragile marine ecosystems on a planetary scale (Fig.  1 ) and most demanded by nautical, recreational and sports tourism: coral reefs and seagrass meadows. These green infrastructures are one of the most popular resources for tourists, mainly due to the diversity of species they harbour, which has led to an exponential growth in recent decades in activities, such as professional and recreational diving, sport fishing and nautical tourism [ 37 ]. Its practice is not risk-free and can produce negative externalities on the environment. For example, nautical recreational activities carried out in pleasure boats generate three types of environmental impacts: polluting the marine environment, the transport of invasive species, and the degradation of the seabed [ 10 ]. Along these lines, if we look at the classification of damages to seagrass meadows, Duarte [ 21 ] distinguishes direct and indirect impacts caused by human activity. The former has to do with mechanical damage (fishing, anchoring, dredging), coastal constructions, aquaculture, eutrophication, and sedimentation, while the latter focus on the effects of climate change (increased extreme weather events, rising sea levels, and ultraviolet radiation, etc.).

Main risks of nautical tourism

Given the current and future relevance of tourism activities and their impact on the conservation and management of marine green infrastructures for the well-being and development of many of the planet's coastal populations, such as reefs and seagrass meadows, in this study, we address the research trends associated with this issue.

The main contribution of this research is linked with the usefulness that marine infrastructures can provide to the development of coastal, nautical and maritime tourism for sustainable growth, under ecological and social responsibility.

The findings are relevant for researchers, professionals, and researchers focused on marine green infrastructures and nature-based solutions as tools to face current global environmental problems, such as climate change and other environmental risks, marine pollution, loss of biodiversity, or the risk posed by introducing exotic species. The results may also be of great interest to researchers focused on aspects of sustainable tourism in marine and coastal areas.

Methodology

In the first phase, the search criteria were limited to tourism, coral reefs and seagrass meadows, mainly due to a growing awareness of the importance of preserving marine meadows which are currently being overexploited as a result of human activity, particularly those related to tourism.

In the second phase, of the selected elements, "tourism" and "coral reef," or "seagrass meadows", a total of 876 documents were obtained in the Scopus database. These were then filtered by articles (615) for the period 1973–2021. For the WoS database, a total of 2,467 documents and 2,226 articles were obtained for the period 1977–2021.

In the third phase, both databases were processed to perform a more complete analysis of the scientific production through bibliometrix , an R software package with a user-friendly interface [ 1 ]. This tool offers analysis at different levels: sources, authors, and documents. In addition, it offers an analysis of the clusters and the conceptual structure of a scientific field, which is very useful for interpreting the results obtained through thematic evolution, thematic maps, and trend themes (Fig.  2 ).

Methodological schema

Results and discussion

Clustering analysis.

An initial analysis was carried out on the conceptual structure, in two dimensions: dimension 1 on the x -axis is the variable "documents", while dimension 2 on the y -axis is the variable "keywords". After applying the clustering algorithm, different bibliometric maps were obtained depending on the type of database used (WoS or Scopus) centred on Author Keywords. The size of the clusters in each bibliometric map was determined by the number of terms and their weight or similarity index. The colour of each cluster was randomly assigned. The proximity between words corresponds to shared substance: keywords are close to each other, because a large proportion of articles treat them together.

After executing different tests, it was decided to analyse the bibliometric maps resulting from the Author Keywords as these differentiated the thematic groups more consistently.

Figure  3 shows the clusters according to Scopus. The Blue Cluster, made up of seven items, integrates research related to the problem that coral reefs are suffering as a consequence of the impact of tourist activities, especially significant in Thailand [ 5 , 16 , 36 , 59 , 78 ]. This section includes research related to the study of both direct and indirect effects of tourism activities on the natural and fisheries resources of coral reefs. In the scientific literature that addresses this issue, there is a wide variety of research related to the impacts generated by tourist activity, both directly (such as the effects of recreational diving) and indirectly (such as pollution from sewage or increased sedimentation or turbidity of the waters surrounding coral reefs as a result of dredging operations in ports) [ 17 , 33 , 41 , 44 ,  60 , 77 ].

Cluster of author keywords—Scopus

The large number of scientific publications about recreational diving in coral reefs is due to the fact that it is an activity in current expansion, to the point that it is a tourist market of economic importance for close to 100 countries and territories [ 66 ].

The Green Cluster, comprising of four items, encompasses research related to the vulnerability of coral reefs and seagrass meadows to the effects of Global Change [ 39 , 67 , 73 ]. In the case of corals, this cluster would include research related to the threat posed to this type of green infrastructure by the warming and acidification of the oceans because of the increase in atmospheric CO2 and the indirect consequences of this problem for related tourism industries.

The research in this section concludes that Climate Change poses a direct threat to coral reefs and seagrasses. For example, the increase in the frequency and intensity of hurricanes attributed to climate change affects the natural resilience of these ecosystem types [ 54 , 76 ]. Another direct cause of climate change is that the increase in CO2 levels affects the chemistry of the oceans, causing an increase in their acidity and, therefore, a reduction in the calcification capacity of coral skeletons [ 40 , 71 ].

In relation to this last aspect, this cluster also includes another group of research linked to the use as indicators for making projections on the effects of Global Change, the changes that are occurring in these marine green infrastructures, such as coral bleaching or the reduction in the surface area of certain seagrass meadows, such as posidonia oceanica [ 27 , 42 , 58 , 56 ].

The Red Cluster encompasses a broad set of keywords related to the conservation and management of these ecosystems and the environmental services they provide [ 2 , 6 , 11 ], as well as human activities that impact them. Tourism activities stand out due to their frequency of appearance in the cluster [ 3 , 26 , 29 61 , 79 ].

This cluster would also include a frequent group of publications aimed at studying the tourist carrying capacity of different coral reef and seagrass areas around the world [ 55 , 64 ]. On the other hand, this cluster would also include social and economic research related to the impact that the environmental degradation of this type of green infrastructure has on the tourism operators linked to it [ 20 ].

In Fig.  4 , and regarding the WoS database, the Blue Cluster comprises eight items, including publications related to the conservation and study of the diversity of Mediterranean seagrass meadows [ 13 , 46 , 49 , 70 ].

Cluster of author keywords—WoS

The appearance of this cluster highlights the existing scientific interest in studying aspects related to the biology and ecology of this type of green infrastructure in Mediterranean marine ecosystems. The Green Cluster, made up of 15 items, includes the line of research mentioned in the previous bibliometric map of the Scopus database, referring to the study of environmental services and their social benefits linked to the conservation and management of these marine ecosystems (coral reefs and seagrass meadows).

In this sense, both the blue cluster and the green cluster highlight the importance of research related to the important environmental services provided by these green infrastructures, such as their role as carbon sinks, in preventing beach erosion by attenuating waves and fixing sand, or as key refuge and breeding sites for species of commercial interest [ 9 , 53 ].

From the point of view of tourism, it is worth highlighting research that attempts to demonstrate the relationship between the environmental degradation of these green infrastructures and the loss of the value tourists perceive from the underwater environment, with the aim of defending the need to carry out management based on the conservation and sustainable use of these valuable ecosystems [ 79 ].

The Red Cluster includes a broad set of items related to the role that seagrass meadows and their sediments play as a carbon store ("blue carbon", "carbon sequestration") and, therefore, as an aid for the mitigation of Climate Change [ 4 , 30 , 43 , 47 , 63 , 69 , 72 ]. Research in this area is providing results that indicate that seagrasses are a key ecosystem type for organic carbon storage.

Finally, concerning the bibliometric map of the WoS database, the absence of research related to the influence of tourism on the conservation of coral reefs and seagrass meadows stands out, an area of study which is clearly present in the Scopus database.

Trend analysis

The graphs depicting the evolution of the research topics are presented below. The vertical nodes represent a group of keywords, and the edges show their evolution over time. The total of co-occurrences gives the size of the cluster.

The most recent research trends (Fig.  5 ) are reflected by the keywords "surveillance", "marine tourism", and "governance". A second, more traditional trend is represented by the keywords "marine protected areas", "conservation", "environmental services", and "coral bleaching".

Research trends by author keywords (Scopus)

Given these results, the following leading lines of research are proposed:

Among research related to coral reefs and seagrasses, there has recently been a growing interest in aspects related to monitoring and surveillance monitoring, marine tourism and governance.

We understand that the interest in monitoring may be due to the fact that these ecosystems have suffered an accelerated process of decline and environmental deterioration in recent years [ 31 ].

On the other hand, the appearance of the keywords "marine tourism" and "governance" among the most current research trends points to an increase in research related to the consequences of touristic use of these green infrastructures, as well as the role played by the population in their conservation and management [ 10 , 14 , 35 , 41 ].

Somewhat less novel, but also important, is research related to environmental services and the conservation of marine protected areas [ 19 , 35 , 38 , 45 ].

Overall, there is some evolution in research trends. In the period 2007–2013, research related to fisheries and marine protected areas were of greater interest; in the period 2014–2016, coinciding precisely with the growth of nautical tourism activities, issues related to the sustainability of tourism activities are becoming more important. In the 2017–2018 period, other issues that also affect the conservation of these ecosystems, such as climate change, biodiversity or carrying capacity in marine protected areas, began to dominate, until today, when topics such as monitoring, surveillance and governance are more important.

Analysis of thematic evolution

According to Scopus, Fig.  6 represents the evolution of the thematic areas, divided into two periods: the first, 1973–2014, is shown in the left column, and the second, 2015–2021, is shown on the right. The following substantial changes are observed:

On the one hand, the term "coral" starts as a single topic and diverges towards topics related to tourism and diving. Likewise, there is an evolution of the concept "recreation" towards the terms "coral" and "diving". This evolution seems to highlight the scientific community's interest in diving tourism in coastal areas and coral reefs due to the relevance of this tourist activity to the areas' economic development and the deterioration and impact that this activity produces in these sensitive green infrastructures.

In addition, there is an evolution of the "economic evaluation" concept towards the concept of tourism, which once again highlights the scientific interest in evaluating the impact of tourism activity in coastal areas.

Finally, an evolution is observed from the concept "marine protected areas" towards the term "diving", from the concept "coral reefs" towards "marine protected area", from the concept "ecotourism" to that of "marine protected areas". This is evidence of the scientific interest in research related to ecotourism in marine protected areas.

Evolution of Scopus research topics

Figure  7 identifies the evolution of the term "coral reefs" towards the concept of "conservation" and of the terms " Posidonia oceanica ", " Thalassia testudinum ", and "seagrasses" towards that of "blue carbon", evidence of the growing interest in research related to coral reef conservation and the role seagrass meadows play as carbon stores (blue carbon) to mitigate the effects of climate change. For example, a study has shown that one hectare of Posidonia oceanica meadow has the capacity to sequester and remove the same amount of carbon from the atmosphere as 17 hectares of pristine Amazonian forest [ 28 ].

Evolution of WoS research topics

Thematic map analysis

There are different ways of analysing the themes of a research field. The strategy diagram offers an interesting means of classifying thematic maps of a research field through keywords. This is a proposal by Callon, Courtilan and Laville (1991). The strategy map is obtained by applying a clustering algorithm on the network of words represented in a coordinate system composed of centrality ( x -axis) and density ( y -axis), differentiating four zones according to these two variables. The first quadrant addresses motor issues; the second quadrant addresses basic and cross-cutting issues; the third quadrant relates to highly developed and isolated issues; and the fourth quadrant groups emerging or declining issues [ 8 , 12 ].

That said, from the point of view of Scopus and Keywords Plus (Fig.  8 ) that the basic themes are "tourism" and "coral reefs". As driving research themes, the most developed are "climate change" and "marine protected areas".

Thematic map of author keywords on Scopus

"Recreation" and "sustainability" appear as specific themes, as do "resilience" and "climate change", with diving and conservation being the declining themes.

As noted in the results of the previous sections, Fig.  8 shows the environmental, economic and social importance of tourism on coral reefs, as well as the risk posed by climate change to this type of green infrastructure.

For WoS (Fig.  9 ), the Author Keywords, "water quality" and "recruitment", stand out as specific and highly developed themes. In this regard, as noted above, ocean acidification as a consequence of the effects of climate change is an issue of concern, because it causes a reduction in the calcification capacity of coral skeletons [ 40 , 71 ].

Thematic map WoS author keywords

"Coral reefs" appear as highly developed and central themes. "Seagrass meadows" appear as an emerging theme, positioning it as an essential piece in carbon sequestration and other benefits in the form of ecosystem services and, therefore, of economic value [ 52 ]. Indeed, the progressive loss of seagrass meadows increases emissions and accelerates climate change [ 50 , 51 ]. The core topics focus on seagrass species such as marine eelgrass and Posidonia oceanica providing essential services for maritime-coastal ecosystems and human well-being.

The results provide a series of general ideas (volume, evolution, trends, and areas) on the current state of a field of research focused on the global impact of coastal tourism on the conservation and management of two of the key marine ecosystems, such as seagrass meadows and coral reefs.

The more significant development and employment opportunities that the tourism sector offers in these coastal areas have led to a considerable increase in the population of the coastal areas, where these habitats have developed in recent decades. As identified in this study, this population growth has led to major socio-economic and environmental changes.

First, the results suggest great interest in studying how tourism and recreational activities affect marine ecosystems. Of particular note is the scientific production related to the study of the impact of diving and nautical tourism activities on the coral reefs. Similarly, the academic community is also interested in research on the need for a greater commitment by the public administration and society in general to carry out tourism management of these infrastructures based on conservation and sustainable use.

What these publications try to demonstrate is that the tourism potential of these spaces is closely related to their ecosystem values. If they are not preserved, there is a risk of losing the economic benefits associated with tourism. That said, it is interesting to value the figure of the coastal informer as a facilitator between the public administration and society, with the aim of raising community awareness of the ecosystem services that marine infrastructures provide for our well-being.

Another prevalent research topic in this area of knowledge is related to the effects that the Global Change phenomenon is having on the key environmental services that these marine ecosystems provide to the local population and the future impact that the tourism sector may have in these areas, whether negatively, accelerating these processes of change, or positively, favouring the conservation and resilience of these ecosystems.

In relation to this section, the results of this study have detected two aspects of great scientific interest. On the one hand, the increasingly evident impact of climate change on coral reefs due to ocean acidification, which causes the deterioration and collapse of this type of ecosystem. In addition, on the other hand, issues related to the fundamental role that seagrasses play as a CO2 sink and, therefore, in contributing to the mitigation of the impacts of climate change.

The environmental and socio-economic effects that Climate Change has on these ecosystems, coral reefs, and seagrass meadows highlight the need to work with public administrations (national, regional, and local) and non-governmental agents to develop governance processes aimed at strengthening the community coastal organisation and agree on long-term policies for the management and conservation of natural resources, as well as the management of natural risks.

In this sense, it is vital when developing public policies to consider the formulation of regulations and procedures that encompass good ecological practices that benefit all the agents involved, both from the economic point of view and that of community social development.

On the one hand, this study has identified as main research trends, environmental monitoring and tracking programs aimed at controlling tourism through indicators of "biological quality", such as seagrass meadows and coral reefs, aspects related to the participation of the population and local tourism sectors in the management and conservation of these marine ecosystems and, finally, the role of ecotourism in marine protected areas.

However, this work is not without its limitations. Only the role of tourism in two types of marine ecosystems, seagrass meadows and coral reefs, have been analysed. Although these ecosystems have the greatest tourism potential on a planetary scale, it would be interesting to repeat this bibliometric analysis process for other marine ecosystems and compare the results with this work to analyse their differences and similarities.

In relation to futures lines of research, it is necessary to conduct more research on the economic valuation of the environmental services provided by this type of marine green infrastructure. The results of this line of research would facilitate the evaluation of their natural capital, which in turn would greatly support decision-making processes and an understanding of the economic losses that could lead to the deterioration or disappearance of these marine ecosystems.

Availability of data and materials

The data sets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on request.

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Acknowledgements

This article has been carried out with the support of the Campus of International Excellence of the Sea (CEIMAR).

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Caparrós-Martínez, J.L., Martínez-Vázquez, R.M. & de Pablo Valenciano, J. Analysis and global research trends on nautical tourism and green coastal infrastructures: the case of coral reefs and seagrass meadows. Environ Sci Eur 34 , 33 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12302-022-00614-2

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Impact of tourism in coastal areas: Need of sustainable tourism strategy

This article discusses the current status of coastal tourism , the associated issues and impacts. The article further provides recommendations for future management of coastal tourism.

• 1 Introduction
• 2.1 Causes of coastal degradation
• 3.1 Tourist infrastructure
• 3.2 Careless resorts, operators, and tourists
• 5.1 Environmental impacts
• 5.2 Impacts on biodiversity
• 5.3 Socio-cultural impacts
• 6.1 Economic benefits
• 6.2 Environmental Management and Planning benefits
• 6.3 Socio-cultural benefits
• 7.1 Analysis of status-quo
• 7.2 Strategy development
• 7.3 Action plan
• 8 Conclusions
• 9.1 External links
• 9.2 Internal Links
• 10 References

Introduction

Since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, there is increasing awareness of the importance of sustainable forms of tourism. Although tourism , one of the world largest industries, was not the subject of a chapter in Agenda 21 , the Programme for the further implementation of Agenda 21, adopted by the General Assembly at its nineteenth special session in 1997, included sustainable tourism as one of its sectoral themes. Furthermore in 1996, The World Tourism Organization jointly with the tourism private sector issued an Agenda 21 for the Travel and Tourism Industry, with 19 specific areas of action recommended to governments and private operators towards sustainability in tourism.

On the other hand, an analysis of the sustainability policies, strategies and instruments of 21 European countries revealed a gap between good theoretical approaches and the general willingness to support a sustainable tourism development and the realisation of it, and concluded that in hardly any of the countries is sustainable tourism put in the centre of the national tourism policy as a priority area [1] .

Specific situation of coastal areas

Coastal areas are transitional areas between the land and sea characterized by a very high biodiversity. They include some of the richest and most fragile ecosystems on earth, like mangroves and coral reefs . At the same time, coasts are under very high population pressure due to rapid urbanization processes. More than half of today’s world population live in coastal areas (within 60 km from the sea) and this number is on the rise.

Additionally, among all different parts of the planet, coastal areas are those which are most visited by tourists and in many coastal areas tourism presents the most important economic activity. In the Mediterranean region for example, tourism is the first economic activity for islands like Cyprus, Malta, the Balearic Islands and Sicily.

Forecast studies carried out by WTO in 2000 estimated that international tourist arrivals to the Mediterranean coast would amount to 270 millions in 2010 and to 346 millions in 2020. However, the latter figure was reached already in 2015 [2] .

Causes of coastal degradation

Tourisms often contributes to coastal degradation. There are many other causes:

• Coastal zone urbanization
• Fisheries and aquaculture
• Port development and shipping
• Land reclamation
• Land-use conversion (Agriculture, Industrial development)
• Climate change and sea level rise

See also Threats to the coastal zone .

How does tourism damage coastal environment

Massive influxes of tourists, often to a relatively small area, have a huge impact. They add to the pollution, waste, and water needs of the local population, putting local infrastructure and habitats under enormous pressure. For example, 85% of the 1.8 million people who visit Australia's Great Barrier Reef are concentrated in two small areas, Cairns and the Whitsunday Islands, which together have a human population of about 130,000.

Tourist infrastructure

In many areas, massive new tourist infrastructure has been built - including airports, marinas, resorts, and golf courses. Overdevelopment for tourism has the same problems as other coastal developments, but often has a greater impact as the tourist developments are located at or near fragile marine ecosystems . A few examples:

• mangrove forests and seagrass meadows have been removed to create open beaches;
• tourist developments such as piers and other structures have been built directly on top of coral reefs ;
• nesting sites for endangered marine turtles have been destroyed and disturbed by large numbers of tourists on the beaches.

Careless resorts, operators, and tourists

The damage is not only due to the construction of tourist infrastructure. Some tourist resorts empty their sewage and other wastes directly into water surrounding coral reefs and other sensitive marine habitats . Recreational activities also have a strong impact. For example, careless boating, diving, snorkeling, and fishing have substantially damaged coral reefs in many parts of the world, through people touching reefs, stirring up sediment , and dropping anchors. Marine animals such as whale sharks, seals, dugongs, dolphins, whales, and birds are also disturbed by increased numbers of boats, and by people approaching too closely. Tourism can also add to the consumption of seafood in an area, putting pressure on local fish populations and sometimes contributing to overfishing. Collection of corals, shells, and other marine souvenirs - either by individual tourists, or local people who then sell the souvenirs to tourists - also has a detrimental effect on the local environment.

The case of cruise ship tourism

Cruise ship tourism is a fast growing sector of the tourism industry during the past decades. While world international tourist arrivals in the period 1990 – 1999 grew at an accumulative annual rate of 4.2%, that of cruises did by 7.7%. In 1990 there were 4.5 million international cruise arrivals which had increased to a number of 8.7 million in 1999 and to 27 million in 2019, with gross economic benefits estimated at $150 billion in direct, indirect and induced economic benefits [3] [4] . From the 1980s to 2018, the global cruise fleet grew from 79 to 369 vessels operating worldwide, and the average cruise ship size and capacity grew from 19.000 to 60.000 gross registered tonnage (GRT). Carrying on average 4,000 passengers and 1,670 crew, these enormous floating towns are a major source of marine pollution through the dumping of garbage and untreated sewage at sea, and the release of other shipping-related pollutants.

Problems caused by cruise tourism are ubiquitous and well-documented, especially for small island nations and the Mediterranean [5] [6] .

• Discharge of sewage in marinas and nearshore coastal areas . The lack of adequate port reception facilities for solid waste, especially in many small islands, as well as the frequent lack of garbage storing facilities on board can result in solid wastes being disposed of at sea, and being transported by wind and currents to shore often in locations distant from the original source of the material.
• Coral reefs. Land-based activities such as port development and the dredging that inevitably accompanies it in order to receive cruise ships with sometimes more than 3000 passengers can significantly degrade coral reefs through the build-up of sediment . Furthermore, sand mining at the beaches leads to coastal erosion . In the Cayman Islands damage has been done by cruise ships dropping anchor on the reefs. Scientists have acknowledged that more than 300 acres of coral reef have already been lost to cruise ship anchors in the harbour at George Town, the capital of Grand Cayman.
• Socio-cultural impacts. Cruise-ship tourism can produce socio-cultural stress, since it means that during very short periods there is high influx of people, sometimes more than the local inhabitants of small islands, possibly overrunning local communities. Vital resources such as food, energy, land, water, etc. may become depleted.
• Ship emissions. Fuel-based cruise ships currently produce large amounts of greenhouse gases. The gradual replacement is only now starting. From the approximately 100 new builds planned up to 2027, one-fifth are LNG powered, corresponding to 39% of the new tonnage and 41% of the added capacity [7] .

Cruise tourism is often ascribed as hedonistic. However, a positive effect of expedition cruise tourism is its educational and awareness-creation potential for sustainability values and issues. It can transform a ‘sense of place’ to a ‘care of place’, encouraging tourists and locals to assume more responsibility [8] .

Impacts of coastal tourism

Environmental impacts

• The intensive use of land by tourism and leisure facilities
• Overuse of water resources, especially groundwater, leading to soil subsidence and saline intrusion
• Changes in the landscape due to the construction of infrastructure, buildings and facilities
• Vulnerability to natural hazards and sea level rise
• Pollution of marine and freshwater resources
• Energy demand and consumption
• Air pollution and waste
• Disturbance of fauna and local people (for example, by noise)
• Loss of marine resources due to destruction of coral reefs , overfishing
• Compaction and sealing of soils, soil degradation due to overuse of fertilizers and loss of land resources (e.g. desertification , erosion )
• Loss of public access

Impacts on biodiversity

Tourism can cause loss of biodiversity in many ways, e.g. by competing with wildlife for habitat and natural resources or by providing pathways for the introduction of alien species. Negative impacts on biodiversity are caused by various other factors, such as those mentioned above.

Socio-cultural impacts

Change of local identity and values:

• Commercialization of local culture: Tourism can turn local culture into commodities when religious traditions, local customs and festivals are reduced to conform to tourist expectations and resulting in what has been called "reconstructed ethnicity".
• Standardization: Destinations risk standardization in the process of tourists desires and satisfaction: while landscape, accommodation, food and drinks, etc., must meet the tourists expectation for the new and unfamiliar situation. They must at the same time not be too new or strange because few tourists are actually looking for completely new things. This factor damages the variation and beauty of diverse cultures.
• Adaptation to tourist demands: Tourists want to collect souvenirs, arts, crafts, cultural manifestations. In many tourist destinations, craftsmen have responded to the growing demand and have made changes in the design of their products to make them more attractive to the new customers. Cultural erosion may occur in the process of commercializing cultural traditions.

Cultural clashes may arise through:

• Economic inequality - between locals and tourists who are spending more than they usually do at home.
• Irritation due to tourist behaviour - Tourists often, out of ignorance or carelessness, fail to respect local customs and moral values.
• Job level friction - due to a lack of professional training, many low-paid tourism-jobs go to local people while higher-paying and more prestigious managerial jobs go to foreigners or "urbanized" nationals.

Benefits of Sustainable coastal tourism

Economic benefits.

The main positive economic impacts of sustainable (coastal) tourism are: contributions to government revenues, foreign exchange earnings, generation of employment and business opportunities. Employing over 3.2 million people, coastal tourism generates a total of € 183 billion in gross value added and represents over one third of the maritime economy of the European Union. As much as 51% of bed capacity in hotels across Europe is concentrated in regions with a sea border [10] .

Contribution to government revenues Government revenues from the tourism sector can be categorised as direct and indirect contributions. Direct contributions are generated by income taxes from tourism and employment due to tourism, tourism businesses and by direct charges on tourists such as ecotax. Indirect contributions derive from taxes and duties on goods and services supplied to tourists, for example, taxes on tickets (or entry passes to any protected areas), souvenirs, alcohol, restaurants, hotels, service of tour operators.

Foreign exchange earnings Tourism expenditures, the export and import of related goods and services generate income to the host economy. Tourism is a main source of foreign exchange earnings for at least 38 % of all countries.

Employment generation The rapid expansion of international tourism has led to significant employment creation. Tourism can generate jobs directly through hotels, restaurants, taxis, souvenir sales and indirectly through the supply of goods and services needed by tourism-related businesses (e.g. conducted tour operators). Tourism represents around 7 % of the world’s employees. Tourism can influence the local government to improve the infrastructure by creating better water and sewage systems, roads, electricity, telephone and public transport networks. All this can improve the standard of living for residents as well as facilitate tourism.

Contribution to local economies Tourism can be a significant or even an essential part of the local economy. As environment is a basic component of the tourism industry’s assets, tourism revenues are often used to measure the economic value of protected areas. Part of the tourism income comes from informal employment, such as street vendors and informal guides. The positive side of informal or unreported employment is that the money is returned to the local economy and has a great multiplier effect as it is spent over and over again. The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) estimates that tourism generates an indirect contribution equal to 100 % of direct tourism expenditures.

Direct financial contributions to nature protection Tourism can contribute directly to the conservation of sensitive areas and habitats . Revenue from park-entrance fees and similar sources can be allocated specifically to pay for the protection and management of environmentally sensitive areas. Some governments collect money in more far-reaching and indirect ways that are not linked to specific parks or conservation areas. User fees, income taxes, taxes on sales or rental of recreation equipment and license fees for activities such as hunting and fishing can provide governments with the funds needed to manage natural resources.

Competitive advantage More and more tour operators take an active approach towards sustainability. Not only because consumers expect them to do so but also because they are aware that intact destinations are essential for the long term survival of the tourism industry. More and more tour operators prefer to work with suppliers who act in a sustainable manner, e.g. saving water and energy, respecting the local culture and supporting the well-being of local communities. In 2000 the international Tour Operators initiative for Sustainable Tourism was founded with the support of UNEP. In 2014 it merged with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) .

Environmental Management and Planning benefits

Sound and efficient environmental management of tourism facilities and especially hotels (e.g.water and energy saving measures, waste minimization, use of environmentally friendly material) can decrease the environmental impact of tourism. Planning helps to make choices between the conflicting interests of industry and tourism, in order to find ways to make them compatible. Planning sustainable tourism development strategy at an early stage prevents damages and expensive mistakes, thereby avoiding the gradual deterioration of the quality of environmental goods and services significant to tourism.

Socio-cultural benefits

Tourism as a force for peace Travelling brings people into contact with each other. As sustainable tourism has an educational element it can foster understanding between people and cultures and provide cultural exchange between guests and hosts. This increases the chances for people to develop mutual sympathy, tolerance and understanding and to reduce prejudices and promote the sense of global brotherhood.

Strengthening communities Sustainable Coastal Tourism can add to the vitality of communities in many ways. For example through events and festivals of the local communities where they have been the primary participants and spectators. Often these are refreshed, reincarnated and developed in response to tourists’ interests. The jobs created by tourism can act as a very important motivation to reduce emigration from rural areas. Local people can also increase their influence on tourism development, as well as improve their jobs and earnings prospects through tourism-related professional training and development of business and organizational skills.

Revitalization of culture and traditions Sustainable Tourism can also improve the preservation and transmission of cultural and historical traditions . Contributing to the conservation and sustainable management of natural resources can bring opportunities to protect local heritage or to revitalize native cultures, for instance by regenerating traditional arts and crafts.

Encouragement social involvement and pride In some situations, tourism also helps to raise local awareness concerning the financial value of natural and cultural sites. It can stimulate a feeling of pride in local and national heritage and interest in its conservation. More broadly, the involvement of local communities in sustainable tourism development and operation seems to be an important condition for the sustainable use and conservation of the biodiversity .

Benefits for the tourists of Sustainable Tourism The benefits of sustainable tourism for visitors are plenty: they can enjoy unspoiled nature and landscapes, environmental quality of goods or services (clean air and water), a healthy community with low crime rate, thriving and authentic local culture and traditions.

Sustainable Tourism Strategy

The sustainable management of tourism is a complex managerial undertaking, requiring the involvement of multiple stakeholder groups, at local, regional and international levels. It entails a large set of actors and stakeholders, ranging from tour operators, industry associations and NGOs to local public authorities, businesses and independent small vendors. Indirectly, ‘producing holiday experiences’ involves entire communities and is subject to a multiplicity of motives, interests and perspectives [7] . In other words, the tourism economy consists of an entire network of institutional and business actors, that should be engaged in sustainable practices through rules and incentives.

Below a few steps are listed for the development and implementation of a strategy for sustainable tourism.

Analysis of status-quo

• Analysis of previous tourism management strategies for the specific area: What can be used? Has it been implemented? Which lessons are to be learnt?
• A stakeholder analysis: Who has an interest in sustainable tourism development? Who are the main actors?
• Facts and figures of the local educational system, economic and social structure
• Anecdotal and traditional knowledge

This information can be collected through

• Interviews with stakeholders
• Questionnaires distributed and collected by e-mail, fax or personally in order to compile standardised data and perform a statistical analysis
• Participation in focus group meetings (e.g. meetings on environmental education, biodiversity management, good governance and fisheries)
• Literature search (including the local library)

Strategy development

A Sustainable Tourism Strategy is based on the information collected. It defines the priority issues, the stakeholder community, the potential objectives and a set of methodologies to reach these objectives. These include:

• Conservation of specific coastal landscapes or habitats that make the area attractive or protected under nature conservation legislation
• Development of regionally specific sectors of the economy that can be interlinked with the tourism sector (e.g. production of food specialities and handicrafts)
• Maximising local revenues from tourism investments
• Enabling self-determined cultural development in the region, etc.

Action plan

The Action Plan describes the steps needed to implement the strategy and addresses a number of practical questions such as: which organizations will take up which activities, over what time frame, by what means and with which resources? As the actions have to be considered on the basis of regional circumstances, there is no standard action plan for all. However, Action Plans usually include measures in the following fields:

• Administration: e.g. promotion of co-operation between sectors and of cross-sectorial development models; involving local people in drafting tourism policy and decisions
• Socio-economical sector: e.g. promoting local purchasing of food and building material; setting up networks of local producers for better marketing; development of new products to meet the needs of tourists, etc.
• Environment: e.g. improving control and enforcement of environmental standards (noise, drinking water, bathing water, waste-water treatment, etc.); identification and protection of endangered habitats; creation of buffer zones around sensitive natural areas; prohibition of environmentally harmful sports in jeopardised regions; strict application of Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment procedures on all tourism related projects and programs
• Knowledge: training people involved in coastal tourism about the value of historical heritage; environmental management; training protected area management staff in nature interpretation; raising environmental awareness among the local population; introducing a visitors information programme (including environmental information)

Conclusions

During the last century, the role of beaches has completely reversed: they have become the driving force behind economic welfare instead of just being an inhospitable place. Demographic pressure, excessive land use and related factors, both in the hinterland (e.g. river dams, water diversion) and on the beach itself (e.g. hard coastal protection structures , sand/coral mining), have led to a general decrease in the contribution of sediments to the maintenance of the beaches and foreshores. It is hard to find a unique solution for all those problems. However, the following points are essential:

• The implementation of Integrated Coastal Zone Management
• A better dissemination of the existing information should be achieved. For that purpose, a better coordination of the existing governmental bodies that deal with coastal management is necessary
• Improvement of environmental education is a precondition for sustainable development of the coast

External links

https://www.gstcouncil.org/ The Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) is managing the GSTC Criteria, global standards for sustainable travel and tourism; as well as providing international accreditation for sustainable tourism Certification Bodies.

Internal Links

• Coastal pollution and impacts
• Threats to the coastal zone
• ↑ Dickhut, H. and Tenger, A. (eds.) 2022. Review and Analysis of Policies, Strategies and Instruments for Boosting Sustainable Tourism in Europe. European SME Going Green 2030 Report, p. 505
• ↑ https://www.f-cca.com/downloads/2018-Cruise-Industry-Overview-and-Statistics.pdf 2018 Cruise Industry Overview]
• ↑ Papathanassis, A. 2022. Cruise tourism. In D. Buhalis (ed), Encyclopedia of Tourism Management and Marketing. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 687–690
• ↑ Moscovici, D. (2017) Environmental Impacts of Cruise Ships on Island Nations, Peace Review, 29: 366-373
• ↑ Caric, H. and Mackelworth, P, (2014) Cruise tourism environmental impacts – The perspective from the Adriatic Sea. Ocean & Coastal Management. 102: 350-363
• ↑ 7.0 7.1 Papathanassis, A. 2023. A decade of ‘blue tourism’ sustainability research: Exploring the impact of cruise tourism on coastal areas. Cambridge Prisms: Coastal Futures 1: 1–11
• ↑ Walker, K. and Moscardo, G. 2016. Moving beyond sense of place to care of place: The role of indigenous values and interpretation in promoting transformative change in tourists’ place images and personal values. Journal of Sustainable Tourism 24: 1243–1261
• ↑ International Tourism Highlights (2019) https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284421152
• ↑ Ecorys (2016) Study on specific challenges for a sustainable development of coastal and maritime tourism in Europe EC Maritime Affairs
• Articles by Lal Mukherjee, Abir
• Reviewed articles
• Integrated coastal zone management
• This page was last edited on 5 May 2023, at 17:28.
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Strategic Infrastructural Development to Promote Sustainable Coastal Tourism Through Geospatial Technology in Purba Medinipur District, West Bengal

• First Online: 23 July 2023

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• Biraj Kanti Mondal   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5010-0224 3 ,
• Aditi Acharya 4 ,
• Ming-An Lee 5 ,
• Sanjib Mahata 3 &
• Tanmoy Basu 6  

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The current study is intended to assess the existing tourism infrastructure in the coastal areas of Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal, and to focus on its strategic development to promote sustainable coastal tourism and to enhance ecotourism potential through geospatial technology. The present study employed secondary datasets, Google Earth map, and primary surveyed data collected by using a stratified random sampling method using a structured questionnaire. Principle Component Analysis (PCA), Satisfaction Index (SI), and Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Challenges (SWOC) analysis of the internal and external factor’s estimated matrix of the tourist beaches have been employed to identify the tourists’ utility-facility zones through the integration of GPS and GIS. The investigation of the existing infrastructure states that the utmost violation of CRZ norms was observed as about 58.54% of establishments of beach resorts and hotels located in the “No Development Zone” in the Mandermoni beach. Furthermore, the study showed that despite the lack of ecotourism facilities, the local stakeholder gets numerous economic benefits and this encouraging influence insists them towards sustainable ecotourism development. The analytical outcomes of the current endeavor find out the potentiality of tourism sites in the study area, which assist to formulate future road map, deliberated progress, constructive plans, and prospects leading toward sustainable tourism development.

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) for providing supportive research funding and Netaji Subhas Open University for the essential support. This effort is a tribute to the researchers and academicians who are working on the coastal areas of West Bengal from varied disciplines and dimensions for sustainable development and management.

Declaration of Interest

The authors declared that there is no conflict of interest.

This research work is supported by the research funding provided by the Indian Council of Social Science Research [ICSSR-MOST (Taiwan)/RP-1/2022-1C], New Delhi, India.

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Mondal, B.K., Acharya, A., Lee, MA., Mahata, S., Basu, T. (2023). Strategic Infrastructural Development to Promote Sustainable Coastal Tourism Through Geospatial Technology in Purba Medinipur District, West Bengal. In: Sahu, A.S., Das Chatterjee, N. (eds) Environmental Management and Sustainability in India. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31399-8_7

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U.S. Climate Resilience Toolkit

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• Coastal Infrastructure

The Pacific Island region faces a range of challenges associated with sea level rise. Higher water levels threaten coastal structures and property, groundwater reservoirs, coral reef ecosystems, harbor operations, wastewater systems, airports, and other resources of social and economic concern. Low islands are especially vulnerable given their limited elevation above present-day sea level. By the end of this century, projected sea levels are likely to exceed important thresholds: combined with possible climate-related changes in storm patterns and regional winds, rising seas may lead to chronic high water levels along many Pacific Island coasts.

Intense waves and high sea level events contribute to coastal erosion, which threatened this house on the North Shore of O‘ahu.

Much coastal damage occurs as a result of elevated water levels. For instance, storm surges related to tropical and extra-tropical storms can cause damaging inundation events. Distant storms can also increase island sea levels through the generation and propagation of breaking ocean waves. Elevated water levels result from of a complex interplay of oceanic, atmospheric, and cryospheric processes. Extreme water levels may be related to changes in global or regional mean sea level, the status of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and other modes of natural variability, storms that occur nearby or at a distance, unusually high tides, and/or vertical land motion.

Future sea levels

Climate variability patterns—most notably, ENSO—affect regional mean sea level on varying time scales. Although sea level height variations related to these conditions are generally weak, they can influence estimates for sea level trends. After accounting for a wide range of factors, however, projections suggest that over the 21st century, sea level in the Pacific will rise at about the same rate as the projected increase in global average sea level.

Blue shading in this visualization from NOAA's Sea Level Rise Viewer shows areas of Honolulu, Hawai'i, that would be inundated at high tide after six feet of sea level rise. Bright green areas would be below sea level, but do not have an opening to the coast. 

Potential impacts

On low islands, critical public facilities and infrastructure as well as private commercial and residential property are especially vulnerable. Agricultural activity will also be affected, as sea level rise decreases the land area available for farming and periodic flooding increases the salinity of groundwater. Coastal and nearshore environments will progressively be affected as sea levels rise and high wave events alter low islands’ sizes and shapes.

Impacts to the built environment on low-lying portions of high islands, where nearly all airports are located and where each island’s road network is sited, will be nearly as profound as those experienced on low islands. Islands with more developed built infrastructure will experience more economic impacts from tourism loss. In Hawai‘i, for example, where tourism comprises 26 percent of the state’s economy, damage to tourism infrastructure could have large economic impacts—the loss of Waikīkī Beach alone could lead to an annual loss of $2 billion in visitor expenditures.

The view northwest from Diamondhead shows that many of the high-rise hotels in Waikīkī are built just a few feet above sea level. 

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New study reveals tourism in brevard county is on the rise.

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Over the last several years, more tourists have been coming to the Space Coast, and more importantly, they’ve been staying longer and spending more money, according to a new study by the Space Coast Office of Tourism.

"The economic impact of tourism to the community was over four and a half-billion dollars. Just a huge number and it was probably half of that five or six years ago," said Peter Cranis, executive director of the Space Coast Office of Tourism.

That’s an overall impact, but the report showed that the amount that those tourists are spending is nearly $3 billion, an increase of about a billion dollars.

"When you look at the spending per person basis, we are at about $200 per person, per day. And that was nearly twice of what it had been previously," added Cranis.

The report also shows that of the 2,500 tourists surveyed, more than half flew into Central Florida. Meaning that if they come from farther away, it’s likely that they will stay longer.

Residents and neighbors like Bill Harrison are happy to hear this.

"What is the economy without the tourists? That is what Florida lives on, so we might as well embrace it," Harrison said.

About 2,000 new hotel rooms should be coming online in Brevard in just the next 18 months, an increase of 20%. So, there is plenty of room to grow if this pace continues.

"I think the numbers will definitely continue to go up," said local business owner Shay Seitz of A1A Outdoors Center.

A new aquarium by Port Canaveral will break ground this year, and the new Cocoa Brightline station is in the works. Both are expected to attract more tourists to the area.

The Blue Economy: Challenges and Solutions in Sustainable Coastal Tourism Development

• Staff Writer
• April 2, 2019

In terms of magnitude, tourism is one of the largest sectors in the world. Overall, tourism and travel account for nearly 10 percent of global GDP. Likewise, annual revenues have been estimated at $7.6 trillion. While these figures are astounding, it is also noteworthy that 80 percent of tourism occurs along coastal towns and areas. Beaches, coral reefs and an array of aquatic activities attract millions each year. Thus, the bottom line is that coastal tourism plays a significant role in the future of the Blue Economy .

Nearly 300 million jobs rely on coastal tourism. In addition, coastal tourism is vital to the survival of small developing island nations around the globe.

But as tourism advances, the risks that coastal tourism impose are sizable. With these concerns increasing, many are strongly advocating for more sustainable tourism development.

Coastal Tourism and the Challenges Ahead in the Blue Economy

With such volumes of travel and coastal tourism, a number of problems face island communities. Some of these problems have been self-inflicted while others have been spin-offs. But either way, all point to the need for sustainable tourism development in these regions. Shoreline developments to date have already cleared precious coral reefs and mangroves to expand sandy beach areas. Likewise, piers and other coastal tourism structures have also negatively impacted these environments. And on-shore developments involving other structures have affected native habitats. Those involving the current dismal state of sea turtles are a notable example of poor sustainable tourism development.

Others are not as apparent when it comes to the negative impacts of coastal tourism. For example, wastewater produced by hotels and resorts poses additional challenges. Plastic bottles and other trash are also concerns resulting from increasing coastal tourism numbers. Other issues in coastal tourism also threaten to worsen climate change. Cruise ship pollution, as well as emissions from recreational water activities, are examples of these problems. Unless these issues are addressed through sustainable tourism development, a variety of negative impacts will sporadically emerge. These will likely include repercussions to the environment, marine life, as well as the economic well-being of many coastal areas.

Proactive “Blue” Approaches to Sustainable Tourism Development

While a number of blue initiatives and forums are proposing action, some island nations are being proactive. Because of their economic reliance on coastal tourism, it only makes sense to promote sustainable tourism development. For example, the Republic of Palau require all tourists to sign the Palau Pledge before arriving in the islands. This move raises awareness of the potential harms coastal tourism brings, as well as the best practices that can be observed by tourist during their visit to islands.

While Palau has taken this approach, the islands of Seychelles have embraced a more comprehensive plan for sustainable tourism development. The objective is to balance economic development with both cultural and environmental conservation and protection. In essence, Seychelles’ plan for sustainable tourism development involves five major areas.

• Sustainable Marine Spatial Planning – This area addresses new developments involving coastal tourism structures through formal sustainable tourism development planning.
• Innovative “Blue” Bonds – This part is offered as a means to finance management, rehabilitation and restoration efforts of marine and coastal areas.
• Scheduled Periodic Audits – This area is set up to establish monitoring activities and evaluation reports on a consistent and regular basis to guide sustainability efforts.
• Sustainable Tourism Development Certifications – With this area, resorts and other coastal tourism businesses would be listed as compliant with sustainability requirements.
• Debt-For-Nature Conservation – This part covers large loans acquired currently to invest in sustainable tourism development and other sustainability activities.

A Good Start with Much More Required

The efforts made by Seychelles and Palau are important steps in the right direction for sustainable tourism development.   At a global scale, one out of every 11 jobs is in the tourism industry.

Therefore, coastal tourism represents a significant economic area for many nations. However, undermining the climate, the environment and marine life in the process will quickly deplete these resources. Similarly, it will place many developing countries in economic distress as coastal tourism quality fades. For these reasons, a global effort is needed to promote genuinely sustainable tourism development.

For more on Bold Business’ series on the Blue Economy, check out these stories on  Deep Seabed Mining ,  Water Desalination and Aquaculture Systems , and Aquaculture Sustainability in Meeting Global Demand for Food .

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Amsterdam’s Latest Effort to Fight Excessive Tourism: No New Hotels

The city wants no more than 20 million hotel stays annually. The measure is one of multiple efforts to control the flow of visitors.

By Claire Moses

Amsterdam has been searching for any way to rein in the number of tourists that visit the city every year.

In March of last year, the city launched an ad campaign specifically targeted at British men between 18 and 35, urging them to “stay away.”

In July, the Dutch capital announced it would bar cruise ships from docking in the city center .

The city has also long tried to control the crowds in its red-light district, where rowdy groups of tourists often cause disruptions to local residents. It has added stricter rules about smoking marijuana . It has banned new tourist shops. And still, the people keep coming.

Now, the city — which is as well known for its canals and 17th century art as for its legal sex industry and easy access to marijuana — has taken one more step to further restrict the explosive growth of tourists: It is banning hotels from being built.

“Amsterdam is saying ‘no’ to new hotels,” the City Council said in a statement. “We want to make and keep the city livable for residents and visitors,” it added.

Amsterdam, which added that it was seeking to keep hotel stays by tourists to under 20 million per year, saw its highest number of visitors before the pandemic in 2019, when there were 25.2 million hotel stays, according to the city’s data.

Last year, that number was exceeded by tourists staying over in Amsterdam, not including stays in short-term rentals like Airbnbs and cruise ships. And the measure also does not take into account daily visitors who do not stay the night.

The ban on new hotels, while sending a clear message about the city’s aim to reduce the number of visitors, is also largely symbolic. The city’s policy on hotel construction was already strict, and there had been only three proposals since 2017 that met Amsterdam’s requirements, according to the city. New hotels that had been approved or were in development — 26 in total — would be allowed to proceed for now.

Under the new rules, a new hotel can only open if another one closes. It also isn’t allowed to add more rooms than were available, according to the city.

“The effect won’t be very big,” said Ko Koens, a professor of new urban tourism at Inholland University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. He also said that in the long run, the capping of hotels could make them more expensive to stay at.

While this ban alone would not make a huge dent in the number of visitors to the city, Mr. Koens said, taken together with other initiatives it could make Amsterdam a less appealing place to visit. But, he said, “For now, visitors don’t seem to mind.”

In total, Amsterdam has nearly 42,000 hotel rooms that can accommodate more than 92,000 people, according to Statistics Netherlands, a governmental institution that compiles data about the country. (In total, the Netherlands has more than 150,000 hotel rooms.)

Amsterdam’s initiatives to rein in tourism have been largely focused on its crowded city center. But as long as Amsterdam’s airport, Schiphol, continues to be a major European hub, it won’t be easy to keep visitors away from the city.

“There are no simple solutions,” Mr. Koens said. “It’s super complex.”

Amsterdam also announced this week it would start cutting the number of river cruises allowed to dock in its waters. In 2023, that number was 2,125. In 2028, the city wants it to be halved, with no more than 1,150. The city predicts that effort could reduce the number of visitors that come into town by 271,000. This proposal, the city said, is to improve the quality of life for residents and to reduce emissions and crowds.

“The balance in the city needs to improve,” Hester van Buren, a deputy mayor who focuses on the city’s port, said in a statement.

Amsterdam isn’t the only major European destination that has been struggling to get a grip on the growing number of tourists. Venice announced it would charge day-tripping visitors 5 euros ($5.33) to enter the iconic streets of its city center on weekends and some holidays from April 25 through mid-July, its busiest season.

Amsterdam, currently in a busy touristic time because of its famous blooming tulips, has not announced a similar measure, but it is likely there will be more efforts and experiments designed to limit visitors — like the hotel ban.

“Without such a stop, Amsterdam’s center would become one big hotel,” Mr. Koens said. “You don’t want that either.”

Claire Moses is a Times reporter in London, focused on coverage of breaking and trending news. More about Claire Moses

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Explosive growth, tourism weigh heavy on western Montana’s aging roads 

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Growing populations and tourism in western Montana are straining aging roads, leaving state and local governments to fix problems or make improvements with limited funding, according to transportation officials. 

While development-driven infrastructure upgrades are nothing new, the Montana Department of Transportation is trying to keep afloat amid “explosive” growth around Missoula and Kalispell, said Joel Boucher, a state engineer for a nine-county district that includes Missoula, Flathead and Ravalli counties. 

“There are so many needs throughout the district that far outpace funding,” he said. 

Subdivisions and other large developments are typically required to mitigate their traffic impacts, but Missoula County’s recent growth adds up, said Shane Stack, the county’s public works director. 

“All of these developments have an aggregate impact on our infrastructure,” he said. “It’s not just one that’s going to make a difference. All of them combined and the growth we’re seeing combined adds pressure on our infrastructure and the staff that has to manage that infrastructure.” 

While growth increases tax revenue, that revenue does not keep up with the costs of expanding services, said Missoula County Commissioner Josh Slotnick. 

“New growth costs everybody money,” he said. 

If a housing or commercial project generates enough traffic to require improvements such as turn lanes or stoplights, developers typically pay for that work, MDT’s Boucher said. However, the farther from the development, the grayer the line defining who pays for what, he said. 

The state transportation department evaluates projects to determine what improvements to its roads may be necessary, but the agency does not guide nor block development, Boucher said.

“We want to make sure the way it impacts the system serves everyone as best and as safely as possible,” he said. 

A recent example of a developer-funded infrastructure improvement is a new stoplight at the intersection of U.S. Highway 93 and Rose Crossing north of Kalispell, Boucher said. Multiple developers paid to install the stoplight last spring, as large commercial and housing projects moved forward on Rose Crossing, KPAX reported at the time.  

“New growth costs everybody money.” Missoula County Commissioner Josh Slotnick

Anticipated development at the Wye west of Missoula could lead to a mix of county- and developer-funded infrastructure improvements over the next several decades, Commissioner Slotnick said. 

The county is crafting an infrastructure plan for the rapidly developing area, which could support an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 homes built over the next 50 to 70 years, according to an infrastructure needs assessment published in November. 

Slotnick emphasized that the projected growth would not happen all at once and that the pace would be determined by landowners and developers. The county is working to fill gaps identified in the needs study, including roads, water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure. 

To help pay for the work and catalyze private development, in 2020 and 2023, Missoula County implemented two targeted economic development districts around the Wye to allow the collection of tax increment revenue, Slotnick said. As improvements are made in the district and property taxes go up, the difference in tax revenue is collected in a fund for further investment in the district.

The county is applying for a $40 million bond from the Montana Board of Investments to fund the improvements up front and will use the tax increment revenue to pay it back, Slotnick said. Under a new state program, half the bond will get an interest rate at 25% of the market rate, which is a “spectacular” deal, he said. 

Starting in July, the county can also collect impact fees on new developments to support government services, public safety and emergency management, according to its website. 

These funding sources can only be used for specific projects or areas, leaving the county short on resources to cover general road maintenance, Slotnick said. To people who ask why the county plans to build new roads when it can’t keep up with maintenance, Slotnick said the infrastructure is necessary to address the housing shortage.

Although population growth rates ticked down last year , Missoula, Flathead and Ravalli counties saw jumps in the COVID-19 pandemic era, according to U.S. census data.  

“ADTs (average daily trips) are through the roof in Missoula, Kalispell,” said Boucher with MDT. “In this district, the amount of people moving here and cars on the roads are huge.” 

The increased traffic, along with Montana’s harsh weather, puts more wear and tear on roads, Boucher said. Many of the state’s bridges are nearing the end of their design life , contributing to the “perfect storm” for the transportation agency, he said. 

Statewide, the needs increase every year as infrastructure ages, with about $400 million worth of projects in the Missoula district the agency can’t address, Boucher said. Inflation has driven costs up across the board, he said. 

Boucher said determining what projects move forward includes figuring out the schedule and how to best serve the public while keeping good roads in good condition. But the biggest constraint is the budget. 

The state receives money from the federal government that provides, on average, 87% of funding for projects, Boucher said. MDT’s matching 13% comes from the state, including gas tax revenue and money allocated by the Legislature, he said. 

In 2023, bills that provided $100 million for local government road maintenance and put $100 million into a highway construction fund to match federal grants were “a huge win,” Boucher said. 

The agency will continue working with local governments and the state to secure more funding, but nobody wants to pay more taxes, Boucher said. 

However, even when Missoula County voters passed a two-cent gas tax in 2020 to help pay for city and county road projects, the Legislature eliminated the option the following year. Losing half of the $1.2 million the tax would have raised annually was a big hit for Missoula County, said Stack, the public works director. 

The tax was a way for Missoula’s approximately 2.5 million annual visitors to help pay their share of wear on the roads, Slotnick said. Local governments need new tools that include a way for non-residents driving on the roads to contribute, he said. 

As it stands, the county can’t complete any large infrastructure projects without major federal grants, Slotnick said. 

The county recently submitted applications for a $25 million and a $17 million grant, but finding enough money for the estimated local match of $3 million each will be a challenge, Stack said.

“I’m barely hanging on, getting by with the work we’re doing,” he said. “To throw in a requirement for that is not insurmountable, but we’ll have to get really creative on how to come up with those funds.”

The county is diverting more funding to help pay for roads and bridges, including $400,000 in tax revenue from local recreational cannabis sales, but that’s not enough to offset all the needs, Stack said. The department falls back on property tax revenue, which has limited annual increases that do not keep up with inflation, he said.  

“We’re no different than the state, just on a smaller scale,” Stack said. “We don’t have the funding we need either to maintain our roads and bridges, so they’re slowly deteriorating. There’s not much we can do.” 

This story was updated on April 29, 2024, to clarify that the state’s matching funds for projects do not come from the state’s general fund.

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Katie Fairbanks is a freelance journalist based in Missoula. Katie grew up in Livingston and graduated from the University of Montana School of Journalism. After working as a newspaper reporter in North Dakota, Katie worked as a producer for NBC Montana's KECI station, followed by five years as a health and local government reporter in Longview, Wash. More by Katie Fairbanks

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Earthquake shakes U.S. East Coast

An earthquake struck the East Coast of the United States on Friday morning, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, causing buildings to shake and rattling nerves from Maryland to Maine.

The USGS measured the quake as a 4.8 temblor with its epicenter near Lebanon, New Jersey. It struck a little before 10:30 a.m. ET. An aftershock of magnitude-4.0 hit right around 6 p.m. ET.

The morning earthquake was the strongest recorded in the Northeast in more than a decade, according to USGS records .

There were no immediate reports of major destruction or any fatalities. Local and regional officials from cities in the earthquake zone said inspections had been launched to ensure that buildings, bridges and other infrastructure were not damaged.

Follow here for live updates on the earthquake.

James Pittinger, mayor of Lebanon, New Jersey, called the earthquake “the craziest thing I’ve ever experienced.”  In an interview with MSNBC , he said he had not received reports of any significant damage so far, but added that the shaking caused his dog to run for cover and objects to fall off his shelves.

While a 4.8-magnitude temblor is not considered a major earthquake, even minor shaking can cause damage on the East Coast, which does not take similar precautions as other earthquake hot spots around the world.

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the quake was felt across the state.

“My team is assessing impacts and any damage that may have occurred, and we will update the public throughout the day,” she wrote on X .

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said in an afternoon news briefing that no major injuries or impacts to infrastructure were reported, and that people in the city should “go about their normal day.”

Ground stops were temporarily issued at Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, according to the Federal Aviation Administration's website. Flight disruptions at the Newark airport continued into the afternoon .

The Port Authority Transit Corp., which operates a rapid transit route between Pennsylvania and New Jersey, suspended service in the aftermath of the quake.

“Crews will inspect the integrity of the line out of an abundance of caution,” PATCO said in an update on X . “Once inspection is complete, service will resume. No timeframe. Updates to follow.”

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority said that there had been no impact to its service but that teams will be inspecting train lines. New Jersey Transit alerted riders of 20-minute delays due to bridge inspections following the earthquake.

While earthquakes in the northeast U.S. are rare, Buffalo, New York, was struck by a 3.8-magnitude quake in February 2023 — the strongest recorded in the area in 40 years.

A 4.1-magnitude earthquake struck the tri-state area in 2017, centered near Little Creek, Delaware,  according to the U.S. Geological Survey . And before that, a 5.8-magnitude quake  shook central Virginia in 2011,  and was felt across much of the East Coast, forcing hundreds of thousands people to evacuate buildings in New York, Washington and other cities.

New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said in a post on X that the state has activated its emergency operations center and asked the public not to call 911 unless they are experiencing an emergency.

Frederik J. Simons, a professor of geosciences at Princeton University, told NBC News that the earthquake occurred on a shallow fault system in New Jersey and lasted about 35 seconds.

“The shallower or the closer it is, the more we feel it as humans,” he said.

The quake originated at a depth of less than 3 miles,  according to the USGS . 

Earthquakes on the East Coast can be felt at a great distance and can cause more pronounced shaking in comparison to those on the West Coast because rocks in the region are often older, harder and more dense.  

“These are competent rocks that transmit energy well,” Simons said.

The earthquake ruptured within a fault zone known as the Ramapo system, Simons said. It’s a zone in relatively ancient rock that contains old faults and cracks from ancient tectonic processes. These old faults slowly accumulate stress and occasionally something slips, Simons said.

“There are cracks in it and now and then a little motion accumulates, the stress keeps growing, at very slow rates,” he said. “It’s like an old house creaking and groaning.”

Simons said this was one of the largest earthquakes in New Jersey in recent history. The last notable one was a magnitude-3.1 temblor in Freehold Township in September 2020. 

“I’m on campus at Princeton University for the biggest one I’ve felt in a lifetime,” he said. “This shaking was violent, strong and long.”

Some videos captured the moment of the earthquake, including one from a coffee shop in New Jersey.

The East Coast quake struck two days after a powerful 7.4-magnitude temblor shook the island of Taiwan, killing at least 12 people and injuring more than 1,000 others. The two incidents are not thought to be related, said Dara Goldberg, a USGS geophysicist.

“We’re much too far of a distance for the stress on the fault of Taiwan to affect New York,” she said.

Denise Chow is a reporter for NBC News Science focused on general science and climate change.

Evan Bush is a science reporter for NBC News. He can be reached at [email protected].

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