Ninth International Conference on The Constructed Environment

Abstract

Resilience is defined as the ability to anticipate and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions. One of these changing conditions is the sea level rise (SLR) in coastal cities with its severe impacts regarding coastal erosion. This dramatic environmental issue necessitates adaptation strategies for waterfront areas to be prepared for the future. Such strategies will help stakeholders to identify vulnerabilities, assess environmental and health risks of disasters, and track progress in improving recovery capacity. The research will focus on the northern wetland of Egypt as it constitutes about 1/4 of the wetland of Mediterranean region. Port Said will be the case study as it hosts Egypt’s second largest harbor. Port Said governorate is the most physically and socio-economically vulnerable area in the region and will be seriously threatened by SLR as most of its land is low-lying. Several models predict an accelerated SLR after 2040–2050 in response to increased melting of the West Antarctic ice shelf. The most expected serious impacts of this SLR would be the threat to recreational beach communities as well as to other activities in the coastal zone. This paper presents four strategies for SLR adaptation: protection, accommodation, retreat, and attack. A comparative analysis will be held for these strategies with respect to the governorate coastal zones to state the most efficient for each zone conditions/constraints. Coastal development phasing will be introduced addressing a timeline scale to achieve these resilient strategies for urban development in Port Said city.