A decision support framework for the risk assessment of coastal erosion in the yangtze delta

Coastal erosion is an issue of widespread concern. As one of the most important economic regions in China, the coast of the Yangtze Delta has been showing a trend towards erosion with global warming and the increasing human activities in the catchment and its estuary. Currently, most published studies about coastal erosion in the area focused on the causes and types of erosion. This paper presents a Decision Support Framework (DSF) for the risk assessment of coastal erosion in consideration of the potential management problems and challenges for economic development in the coastal zone of the Yangtze Delta. The framework consists of four major components: integrated database, GIS-based risk assessment models, scenarios generator and visualization toolkit. Especially, we developed a GIS-based risk assessment model for the muddy coasts of Yangtze Delta. An Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) method, which is instrumental in combining computer intelligence and experts' knowledge, was used to weight the variables of the model. The assessment results show the validity of the approach. Accordingly, the DSF will make the specialized data and information more accessible to managers, and has an extensive capability to facilitate communication and synergetic work between humans and computers. In this way, it is expected to make manager make more scientific decision.