SCOFrance
70%of the Saint Louis coastal strip is highly or very highly vulnerable
Key wordsCoastline, coastal vulnerability, flooding, storms, river flooding, simulation, critical infrastructure, awareness-raising
OSS St Louis: an interface to visualize coastal vulnerability
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Take a look at this Pleiades satellite image: it is on the basis of this image, and others from Landsat and Sentinels, that OSS Saint Louis has developed its method for assessing the vulnerability of the Senegalese city to the risks posed by climate change, and for raising public awareness of the issue. ◀︎ Representative of the hazards and risks encountered in West Africa, Saint-Louis is vulnerable to coastal erosion and subject to both flooding from the Senegal River and storm surges. © CNES 2012, Distribution Airbus DS |
The results of their work can be seen on the SCO St Louis mapping platform, which is freely accessible and allows anyone to select and combine different layers of information:
- Flood simulations according to different IPCC scenarios, with or without storm and/or Senegal River flooding;
- Vegetation cover using the NDVI standardised index
- Past historic floods
- DEM digital elevation model
- Land use
- Vulnerability of neighbourhoods to rising sea levels
- Location of essential infrastructure
In addition to technical developments, the project has focused on assessing local stakeholders' perception of risk through field surveys and an analysis of the literature and current adaptation projects.
While the characterization of essential and critical issues and infrastructures depends on the existence of reliable and recent in situ data, the method for analyzing local stakeholders' perception of risk and the framework for designing the monitoring system can be replicated in other cities to provide input for strategies for adapting to climate change in coastal areas and coastal cities of the future.