Impacts of Climate Change and Sea-Level Rise: A Preliminary Case Study of Mombasa, Kenya

Abstract Mombasa is the second largest city in Kenya and the largest international seaport in East Africa, with over 650,000 inhabitants. The city has a history of natural disasters associated with extreme climatic events, most recently, the severe rain-induced flooding in October 2006, which affected about 60,000 people and caused damage to important infrastructure. Because the city is expected to continue to experience rapid growth, the future impacts of such events can only increase. Changes in sea level and storm surges are components of climate change that have the potential to further increase the threats of flooding within the city. This geographic information system–based study provides a first quantitative estimate, both now and through the twenty-first century, of the number of people and associated economic assets potentially exposed to coastal flooding due to sea-level rise and storm surges in Mombasa. The current exposure to a 1 ∶ 100 y extreme water level for the Mombasa district is estimated at 190,000 people and US$470 million in assets. About 60% of this exposure is concentrated in the Mombasa Island division of the city, where about 117,000 people (2005 estimate) live below 10 m elevation. By 2080, exposure could grow to over 380,000 people and US$15 billion in assets, assuming the well-known A1B sea-level and socioeconomic scenario. Future exposure is more sensitive to socioeconomic than climate scenarios. However, there is significant scope within the city limits to steer future development to areas that are not threatened by sea-level rise. Hence, forward planning to focus population and asset growth in less vulnerable areas could be an important part of a strategic response to sea-level rise. The methods used here could be applied more widely to other coastal cities in Africa and elsewhere to better understand present and future exposure and worst-case risks due to climate change and rising sea levels.

[1]  Jon Barnett,et al.  The issue of ‘ Adverse Effects and the Impacts of Response Measures ’ in the UNFCCC , 2001 .

[2]  N. Adger,et al.  Country level risk measures of climate-related natural disasters and implications for adaptation to climate change , 2003 .

[3]  B. Hoyle.  Global and local forces in developing countries , 2000 .

[4]  Daisuke Mizuno,et al.  A Semi-Empirical Approach to Projecting Future Sea-Level Rise , 2007 .

[5]  S. Rahmstorf,et al.  Global sea level linked to global temperature , 2009, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[6]  N. White,et al.  A 20 th century acceleration in global sea-level rise , 2005 .

[7]  Emma L. Tompkins,et al.  Report to the Cayman Islands' Government. Adaptation lessons learned from responding to tropical cyclones by the Cayman Islands' Government, 1988 - 2002 , 2003 .

[8]  Ian G. Taylor,et al.  Burying Carbon under the Sea: An Initial Exploration of Public Opinions , 2002 .

[9]  Esteve Corbera,et al.  A Multi-Criteria Assessment Framework for Carbon-Mitigation projects: Putting "development" in the centre of decision-making , 2002 .

[10]  J. Akama,et al.  Tourism and Socio-economic Development in Developing Countries: A Case Study of Mombasa Resort in Kenya , 2007 .

[11]  J. Watson,et al.  The development of large technical systems: implications for hydrogen , 2001 .

[12]  K. J.-H..  Long Run Technical Change in an Energy-Environment-Economy ( E 3 ) Model for an IA System : A Model of Kondratiev Waves , 2003 .

[13]  Saleemul Huq,et al.  Adaptation to climate Change: Setting the Agenda for Development Policy and Research , 2002 .

[14]  H. L. Miller,et al.  Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis , 2007 .

[15]  Krystel M R Dossou,et al.  The vulnerability to climate change of Cotonou (Benin) , 2007 .

[16]  Richard J. T. Klein,et al.  Integrating mitigation and adaptation into climate and development policy: three research questions , 2005 .

[17]  Jouni Paavola,et al.  Justice and adaptation to climate change , 2002 .

[18]  Harriet Bulkeley,et al.  Governing Climate Change Post-2012: The Role of Global Cities - Melbourne , 2012 .

[19]  Stuart Barr,et al.  A blueprint for the integrated assessment of climate change in cities , 2009 .

[20]  S. Jevrejeva,et al.  The Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level , 2005 .

[21]  A. P. Oosterom.  The geomorphology of Southeast Kenya , 1988 .

[22]  R. Nicholls,et al.  A global analysis of human settlement in coastal zones , 2003 .

[23]  B. C. Douglas,et al.  Chapter 3 Sea level change in the era of the recording tide gauge , 2001 .

[24]  D. Dodman,et al.  Adapting cities to climate change , 2009 .

[25]  Robert J. Nicholls,et al.  Understanding the regional impacts of climate change: research report prepared for the Stern review on the economics of climate change. , 2006 .

[26]  S. Hanson,et al.  Ranking Port Cities with High Exposure and Vulnerability to Climate Extremes: Exposure Estimates , 2008 .

[27]  B. Anderson,et al.  The rising tide: assessing the risks of climate change and human settlements in low elevation coastal zones , 2007 .

[28]  N. White,et al.  A 20th century acceleration in global sea‐level rise , 2006 .

[29]  N. Koedam,et al.  Mangrove forests in a peri-urban setting: the case of Mombasa (Kenya) , 2009, Wetlands Ecology and Management.

[30]  Mike Hulme,et al.  Abrupt climate change: can society cope? , 2003, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

[31]  B. Wambua,et al.  Urban Growth of Mombasa Coastal Town and Its Implication for Surface and Groundwater Resources , 1999 .

[32]  Robert J. Nicholls,et al.  Climate change and coastal vulnerability assessment: scenarios for integrated assessment , 2008 .

[33]  John Turnpenny,et al.  Reviewing organisational use of scenarios: case study - evaluating UK energy policy options , 2001 .

[34]  Anny Cazenave,et al.  Contemporary sea level rise. , 2010, Annual review of marine science.

[35]  T. Barker,et al.  World economic dynamics and technological change: projecting interactions between economic output and CO2 emissions , 2008 .

[36]  Stefan Rahmstorf,et al.  Rapid changes of glacial climate simulated in a coupled climate model , 2001, Nature.

[37]  Harriet Bulkeley,et al.  Governing Climate Change Post-2012: The Role of Global Cities Case-Study: Los Angeles , 2012 .

[38]  Lorraine Whitmarsh,et al.  A Dynamic Typology of Stakeholder Engagement within Climate Change Research:Tyndall Working paper 128 , 2008 .

[39]  G. Müller,et al.  The Scientific Basis , 1995 .

[40]  W. Adger,et al.  Defining response capacity to enhance climate change policy , 2005 .

[41]  N. Brooks.  Vulnerability, risk and adaptation: A conceptual framework , 2002 .

[42]  S. Hanson,et al.  The effects of climate mitigation on the exposure of the world's large port cities to extreme coastal water levels , 2010 .

[43]  R. Moss,et al.  The regional impacts of climate change : an assessment of vulnerability , 1997 .

[44]  Anne Hammill,et al.  Portfolio screening to support the mainstreaming of adaptation to climate change into development assistance , 2007 .

[45]  Robert J. Nicholls,et al.  The Habitats Directive, coastal habitats and climate change - case studies from the south coast of the U.K. , 2007 .

[46]  Lorraine Whitmarsh,et al.  Transition to sustainable development in the UK housing sector: From case study to model implementation , 2008 .

[47]  D. Valencio,et al.  Palaeomagnetism and the reconstruction of gondwanaland , 1977 .

[48]  Thorkild Aarup,et al.  Sea level monitoring in Africa , 2007 .

[49]  J. Hay,et al.  Coastal systems and low-lying areas , 2007 .

[50]  Robert J. Nicholls,et al.  Capturing coastal morphological change within regional integrated assessment: an outcome-driven fuzzy logic approach. Tyndall Centre Working Paper 113 , 2007 .

[51]  P Ekins,et al.  The Costs of Kyoto for the US Economy , 2004 .

[52]  R. Nicholls,et al.  A New Global Coastal Database for Impact and Vulnerability Analysis to Sea-Level Rise , 2008 .

[53]  T. D. Mitchell,et al.  A comprehensive set of high-resolution grids of monthly climate for Europe and the globe: the observed record (1901-2000) and 16 scenarios (2001-2100). , 2004 .

[54]  Philip L. Woodworth,et al.  R. Player. . The Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level: An update to the 21st century. , 2003 .

[55]  M. El-Raey,et al.  Vulnerability assessment of the coastal zone of the Nile delta of Egypt, to the impacts of sea level rise , 1997 .

[56]  Alexei G. Sankovski,et al.  Special report on emissions scenarios : a special report of Working group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change , 2000 .

[57]  W. N. Adger,et al.  Building resilience to climate change through adaptive management of natural resources , 2002 .

[58]  Robert J. Nicholls,et al.  Increasing flood risk and wetland losses due to global sea-level rise: regional and global analyses , 1999 .

[59]  Suraje Dessai,et al.  Does climate policy need probabilities , 2003 .

[60]  Abigail L. Bristow,et al.  The role of hydrogen in powering road transport , 2002 .

[61]  Chris Hope,et al.  Spotlighting impacts functions in integrated assessment. Research report preapred for the Stern Review on the economics of climate change , 2006 .

[62]  W. Collins,et al.  Global climate projections , 2007 .

[63]  Kimio Hanawa,et al.  Observations: Oceanic Climate Change and Sea Level , 2007 .

[64]  G. Seyfang,et al.  Personal Carbon Trading : a critical examination of proposals for the UK , 2009 .

[65]  M. Mwakumanya,et al.  Beach Morphological Dynamics: A Case Study of Nyali and Bamburi Beaches in Mombasa, Kenya , 2007 .

[66]  Clare M. Goodess,et al.  The identification and evaluation of suitable scenario development methods for the estimation of future probabilities of extreme weather events , 2001 .

[67]  Richard Starkey,et al.  Assessing common(s) arguments for an equal per capita allocation , 2011 .

[68]  R. Nicholls.  Coastal flooding and wetland loss in the 21st century: changes under the SRES climate and socio-economic scenarios , 2004 .

[69]  J. Houghton,et al.  Climate change 2001 : the scientific basis , 2001 .

[70]  Brian Hoyle,et al.  ON THE DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF CLIMBING AND WALKING ROBOTS FOR THE MARITIME INDUSTRIES , 2000 .

[71]  Other.  State of the world's cities , 2002 .

[72]  P. Abuodha,et al.  Human-induced stresses on mangrove swamps along the Kenyan coast , 2001, Hydrobiologia.

[73]  V. Orindi,et al.  Climate change and coastal cities: the case of Mombasa, Kenya , 2008 .

[74]  J. N. Kamau,et al.  Heavy Metal Distribution and Enrichment at Port-Reitz Creek, Mombasa , 2002 .