CARA Coastal Storyboard · ESCAP
From Coastal Risk to Resilience in Asia and the Pacific
Explore how hazards, data, and adaptation tools shape informed coastal planning and resilience across Asia and the Pacific.
Leila@UNESCAP
CS-001 · Coastal Hazards in Asia-Pacific
A convergence of tsunamis, climate induced, and ocean-related hazards
Coastal countries in Asia-Pacific face a convergence of tsunamis, climate induced, and other ocean-related hazards that threaten millions of people, critical infrastructure, and fragile ecosystems.
to a low-probability, high-impact tsunami
low-probability, high-impact tsunami
by 2050 under current emissions trends
by 2050 under current emissions trends
CS-002 · Historic Record
Asia-Pacific experiences some of the world’s most frequent and intense coastal disasters
Disasters that changed the way we understand coastal hazards show how tsunami, cyclone, coastal flooding, coral bleaching, and storm surge reshape preparedness across the region.
CS-003 · Historic Disasters
Disasters that changed how we understand coastal hazards
Some disasters do more than leave a lasting impact on communities. They also change policies, institutions and approaches to preparedness. Explore how two landmark disasters transformed coastal disaster risk management in the region.
Indian Ocean Tsunami
On 26 December 2004, communities across the Indian Ocean faced a tsunami that changed lives in an instant. The disaster became a catalyst for stronger cooperation, better preparedness, and a shared commitment to protecting people from future coastal hazards.
Odisha Super Cyclone
When the Odisha Super Cyclone struck India's east coast in 1999, its impacts were felt far beyond the shoreline. The event triggered a fundamental shift in disaster preparedness and risk management.
CS-004 · Climate Projections
Asia-Pacific Coastal Risks and Climate Exposure Trends
Explore how sea surface temperature, thermal stress and coastal flooding could develop across the region, and where population, mangroves and coral reefs may face increasing exposure. Compare trends at regional, subregional and country levels to identify emerging hotspots.
CS-005 · Coastal Values
CS-008 · Marine Heatwave
Heat impacts are cascading across systems and disproportionately affect the vulnerable
Marine heat risk is now formally recognized as a regional priority by the ESCAP for disaster risk reduction and early warning systems — ESCAP/CDR(9)/5
Cyclone change
Marine heatwaves increase ocean heat content, intensifying tropical cyclones and amplifying coastal damage and flooding.
From ocean to glacier
Marine heatwaves alter ocean temperature and circulation, accelerating ice melt and influencing sea-level rise and polar/coastal systems.
Fisheries & Coral bleaching
Marine heatwaves cause coral bleaching and ecosystem disruption, leading to declines in fish stocks and cascading impacts on food security and livelihoods.
Coastal communities
Marine heatwaves translate into economic losses, food insecurity, and heightened risk for vulnerable coastal populations.
CS-009 · Risk to Resilience
From understanding risk to building resilience
Understanding risk is only the starting point. Building resilient coasts requires countries to connect global commitments with local knowledge and turn integrated analysis of hazards, exposure and vulnerability into informed decisions and coordinated action. Moving from understanding coastal risk to reducing it requires regional analysis to be translated into decision-ready information, supported by practical planning tools and the capacity to anticipate risks, prepare for impacts and plan for adaptation.
CS-010 · Global Frameworks
Connecting global ambitions with regional coastal actions
Global and regional initiatives are moving toward integrated, anticipatory, inclusive, and data-driven resilience. The ESCAP Risk and Resilience Portal helps translate these shared ambitions into practical regional and country-level knowledge for disaster preparedness, climate adaptation, ecosystem protection and sustainable development.
Risk & Resilience Portal
Strengthens disaster risk knowledge and early warning; supports risk-informed early warning and preparedness; builds community-level capacity for tsunami-prone coasts.
Contributes to coastal resilience and ocean-risk knowledge; uses coastal and marine ecosystems as part of adaptation and disaster risk reduction.
Supports climate adaptation and resilience commitments under NDCs; supports resilience to compounding heat risk in coastal and urban areas.
Anchors resilience work within the broader sustainable development framework.
CS-013 · Tools and Initiatives
From data to coastal resilience decisions
Turning commitments into practical decisions requires data that helps countries understand where risks are concentrated, who and what is exposed, and which actions can reduce future losses. The ESCAP Risk and Resilience Portal brings together complementary tools that help users move from understanding hazards and exposure to identifying hotspots and informing action.
Understand hazards
Integrate high-resolution data to characterize flooding, storm surge, erosion, sea-level rise, and other coastal hazards.
- Map areas potentially affected by storm surge or coastal inundation
- Examine shoreline exposure to sea-level rise
- Compare multiple coastal hazards affecting the same location
- Use selected coastal risk layers available at approximately 30 m to 1 km resolution, depending on the dataset
Identify exposure
Overlay coastal hazard layers with information on population, settlements, infrastructure, economic activity, and ecosystems.
- Estimate populations located within a coastal flood or tsunami zone
- Identify exposed roads, schools, hospitals, ports, and settlements
- Locate coastal ecosystems and livelihoods potentially affected
Locate risk hotspots
Reveal where risks are concentrated, which groups are most vulnerable, and where intervention is most urgent.
- Identify where severe hazards overlap with dense populations
- Locate vulnerable communities near critical infrastructure
- Compare coastal areas facing multiple or compounding hazards
- Prioritize locations for detailed assessment and intervention
Inform action
Translate coastal risk information into practical choices about warning coverage, preparedness, land use, infrastructure, adaptation and resilience.
- Refine warning zones and evacuation routes
- Identify communities requiring targeted warning communication
- Prioritize resilient infrastructure or ecosystem restoration
- Direct adaptation finance toward the highest-risk locations
ClimaCoast
Multi-Hazard Vulnerability Coastal Tool — integrates tsunami, sea-level rise, storm surge, and other ocean-related hazards with exposure and vulnerability layers to pinpoint shoreline hotspots and guide actionable resilience planning.
Developed under the CARA funded project Learn moreClimaWise
AI-powered tool for climate adaptation planning with global case studies and tailored recommendations based on unique risk profiles.
Developed under the CARA funded project Learn moreIBF Plugin
Automated impact-based forecasting for planning windows at seasonal scale, translating hazard information into clear insights on impacts to people, infrastructure, and services.
Developed under the CARA funded project Learn moreMaldives DSS page
A tailored, risk-informed decision support system using national data to assess climate risks, sectoral impacts, and vulnerable populations.
Updated with heat data under the project Learn moreESCAP Trust Fund for Tsunami, Disaster and Climate Preparedness
A regional initiative established after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to strengthen multi-hazard early warning systems, disaster preparedness, and climate resilience across Asia-Pacific and Small Island Developing States.
Learn moreSATGPT
An innovative solution integrating LLMs, cloud computing platforms, and Earth observation data for flood hotspot mapping.
Learn moreCS-015 · Multi-hazard Coastal Analysis and Adaptation Project
Connecting Science and Policy for Coastal Resilience
Building coastal resilience requires different parts of the risk and decision-making process to work together. When data, analysis and decision support are not fully connected, translating scientific knowledge into policy and action can be challenging. The Risk and Resilience Portal: Multi-Hazard Coastal Analysis and Adaptation Project helps complete the picture by strengthening the connections between risk knowledge, decision-making and practical action.
Drag each piece into its matching gap, or click a piece and it will slide into place.
Knowledge
Operationalize a regional, integrated approach to identify and visualize multi‑hazard coastal risk hotspots.
Decisions
Translate regional coastal risk analytics into decision‑ready tools, country‑level risk assessments, and visual storyboards that support early warning, preparedness, and adaptation planning.
Action
Enhance national and regional capacity to apply multi‑hazard coastal risk information through training, stakeholder engagement, and regional learning platforms.
CS-017 · Country Applications
Bringing coastal risk analysis into country context
In the Maldives and Sri Lanka, regional methods are applied to distinct national and local contexts. Explore how coastal hazards intersect with exposed populations, ecosystems and economic sectors, and how partnerships, workshops and tailored decision support help turn regional knowledge into country action.
Maldives
Different Islands, Different Risks
Flood risk varies across the Maldives. Some islands have high numbers of exposed people and assets, while others have a large share of their land within the flood zone.
Different Islands, Different Risks
Hulhumalé, Malé, Hulhulé, Hithadhoo, Gan, Thinadhoo and Feydhoo repeatedly appear as hotspots because they have high concentrations of people, roads, buildings and essential services.
Other islands face a different challenge. Even where the number of exposed people is lower, flooding may affect most of the available land. This can leave limited safe space for evacuation, temporary shelter, continued services or rebuilding.
Tsunami Risk
A severe tsunami could affect entire island communities, not only areas close to the shoreline.
Tsunami Exposure Reaches Beyond the Shoreline
In some places, the modelled inundation zone covers a large share of the populated area.
Male' City has by far the largest absolute exposed population, with approximately 191,969 people located inside the modelled tsunami inundation zone.
Several other atolls also show high exposure as a proportion of their population: 67% of Seenu Atoll's population and 55% of Thaa Atoll's population are potentially exposed to tsunami.
Reefs Under Stress
Ocean warming could place almost all coral reefs under severe heat stress, threatening nature, livelihoods and coastal protection.
Coral Reefs Face a Rapid Shift to Heat Stress
Coral reefs are essential to the Maldives. They support fisheries and tourism, provide habitats for marine life, and help protect islands by reducing wave energy.
The analysis shows a major shift from historically limited heat stress to widespread severe stress in the future. Damage to reefs would therefore be more than an environmental loss. It could also affect food security, jobs, tourism income and natural protection from waves.
Under the high-emissions SSP5-8.5 pathway, Maldives reefs transition from no high-stress exposure historically to 100% of mapped reef area experiencing moderate-to-high thermal stress by mid-century, including almost 40% under high stress.
Kulhudhuffushi
ClimaCoast's assessment of Kulhudhuffushi highlights areas exposed to coastal flooding and vulnerable groups, broadly aligning with local reports and providing a useful starting point for preparedness and adaptation.
Kulhudhuffushi: Testing the Data Locally
Kulhudhuffushi brings the national story down to city scale. Local reports already identify flooding, storm surge and heat as important concerns for the island.
The comparison found a clear overlap: both local information and ClimaCoast highlight the low-lying northeastern part of Kulhudhuffushi as more exposed to coastal flooding. The tool also broadly reflects the island's built-up structure and the distribution of vulnerable groups, making it a useful starting point for local conversations on preparedness and adaptation.
Regional data becomes more powerful when it is checked against local reality.
Workshop
Risk data is most useful when it reflects local knowledge and can be used by the people responsible for planning.
The workshop brought together national agencies, local councils, technical experts and community representatives. Participants reviewed the risk information, identified local priorities and learned how to use the tools for future assessments.
National Engagement Turned Data Into Action
- Downscaled climate variables for island-level decision-making
- Integrated Multi-Hazard Analysis to identify cascading risks
- Collaborative Priority Setting across government and communities
- Enhanced National Capacity through practical risk assessment tools
Sri Lanka
Risks Are Connected
Coastal hazards can affect communities in several ways at once, damaging homes and farmland while disrupting roads and essential services.
Sri Lanka faces interconnected coastal and climate risks
Sri Lanka faces interconnected coastal risks, including flooding, tsunamis, shoreline erosion and increasing heat stress on coral reefs.
The effects extend far beyond the shoreline. Coastal flooding can damage farmland and threaten rural livelihoods. Even a short flooded section of road can interrupt access to schools, hospitals, markets and emergency services.
Tsunamis can also affect entire coastal systems. Alongside homes and settlements, schools, health facilities, roads and informal settlements fall within the modelled inundation zone. Exposure is particularly concentrated along the eastern and northern coasts, with additional areas at risk in the south-western urban corridor.
Eastern Hotspots
Coastal flood risk is not evenly distributed. Ampara and Batticaloa repeatedly stand out across population, land, roads and farmland.
Coastal Risk Clusters Along the East Coast
Coastal flooding affects different parts of Sri Lanka in different ways.
Batticaloa facing the largest exposure at 3,224 people, followed by Ampara (2,508) and Galle (1,643) under the 2050 sea-level and 250-year flood scenario.
Other districts, including Galle, Gampaha, Puttalam, Jaffna and Colombo, also face coastal flooding, with particular communities, roads and areas of land exposed.
By 2050, around 11,800 people could be exposed to coastal flooding reaching 0.5 metres or more as sea levels rise under a high-emissions future. The estimate is based on a severe flood with a 4% chance of occurring over a 10-year period.
Older persons are the fastest-growing at-risk group, with flood exposure increasing 22.9% by 2030, compared with 4.0% for the overall population.
Access to Health Care
A hospital may remain outside the flood zone but become difficult to reach when surrounding roads are disrupted.
Health Access Depends on Roads, Not Just Hospitals
During a flood, reaching health care can become difficult even when the hospital itself remains safe. Flooded or closed roads can delay ambulances, lengthen journeys and leave some communities temporarily cut off from essential care.
Most flood-prone communities have a hospital outside the flood zone within reach, but the journey may be several kilometres long. Under projected 2050 sea levels, around 140 high-risk hotspots could face flooding with no reachable hospital in an emergency.
Preparing for these disruptions means identifying roads that could become blocked, planning alternative ambulance routes and considering where temporary health services may be needed.
Changing Coasts
Ocean warming is increasing pressure on coral reefs, while parts of the western shoreline are already experiencing erosion.
Reefs and Shorelines Are Changing Risk Frontiers
Sri Lanka's reefs and shorelines support fisheries, tourism and coastal livelihoods. They also provide natural protection by reducing wave energy and helping to stabilize the coast.
Under a high-emissions future, all mapped reef areas could experience high or very high severe heat stress by the end of the century. This could weaken marine ecosystems and reduce the benefits that healthy reefs provide to coastal communities.
Under the high-emissions SSP5-8.5 scenario, moderate-or-higher thermal stress expands from 0% historically to 15% of Sri Lanka's reef area by mid-century.
Workshop
Risk information is more useful when national experts can review the evidence, test the methods and connect the results with local planning needs.
During the workshop, technical experts examined the hazard data, analytical methods and findings to determine how well they represented Sri Lanka's coastal context.
National Validation Turned Evidence Into Action
- National Validation of Risk Analytics
- Improved Decision-Support Tools
- Expanded Government Partnerships
- Enhanced Capacity for Coastal Risk Planning
CS-018 · ClimaCoast Tool
Explore ClimaCoast tool
Multi-Hazard Vulnerability Coastal Tool — integrates tsunami, sea-level rise, storm surge, and other ocean-related hazards with exposure and vulnerability layers to pinpoint shoreline hotspots and guide actionable resilience planning.
CS-019 · AI and Smart Solutions
Explore ClimaWise tool
AI-powered tool for climate adaptation planning with global case studies and tailored recommendations based on unique risk profiles.
CS-020 · Impact-Based Forecasting
Impact-Based Forecasting
A new approach to understanding exposure to climate-induced events
Impact-Based Forecasting translates climate and weather information into practical, sector-relevant guidance: what will happen, who or what may be affected, and where early action may be most effective.
- Helps answer not just what the weather will be, but what the weather will do, by combining hazard forecasts with information on exposure and vulnerability
- Provides policymakers with a clear view of cascading risks across climate, disaster, environment and health domains
- Delivers evidence-based analytics to support regional cooperation and actionable risk assessments
- Translates technical hazard classifications into practical, localized insights for resilience building
CS-021 · Support
Funded by
The Risk and Resilience Portal: Multi-Hazard Coastal Analysis and Adaptation project is funded by Climate Action for a Resilient Asia (CARA), the UK Government’s flagship climate adaptation programme.
Explore caraprogramme.org
Our International Partners
CS-024 · Resources
Explore related resources
Explore related video, publications, technical resources and blogs for further insights into coastal risk and resilience.