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ORRAA - OCEAN RISK AND RESILIENCE ACTION ALLIANCE

Haiphong, Vietnam

Illustrative view of coastal flooding
without ecosystems

The Coastal Risk Index Is
The Platform For Assessing
Coastal Resilience

The Coastal Risk Index – the CRI – harnesses the power of data to enable financial institutions, investors, insurers, and policymakers to better assess coastal risk and improve decision-making in the climate crisis.

Better Data

Better Data

The CRI provides the foundation for better understanding coastal risks, enabling more informed decisions about building resilience in coastal communities. It goes beyond physical flood risk and economics to include social drivers and incorporate the crucial role of nature.

The CRI is an open-source platform providing a detailed set of global flood maps, using hydrodynamic models, to understand current and future coastal flood risk and the flood reduction benefits of natural habitats. Social vulnerability data highlights where reefs and mangroves are critical to reducing risk for climate vulnerable coastal communities.

14.2 million

Coral reefs provide a critical first line of defence against coastal flooding and storm surges as a result of climate change, breaking 97% of wave energy. But reefs are disappearing. If we lose just the top metre of coral reefs, the annual cost of storms will double globally.

Better
Decisions

Better Decisions

The CRI is designed to inform financial institutions, insurers, policymakers, and other decision-makers about climate risks and resilience strategies for coastal areas. This platform enables communities to be more resilient while protecting and restoring nature.

30%

Mangroves protect 15 million people from flooding each year and reduce property damage from storms by more than USD$65 billion annually, but more than 25,000 acres of mangroves are lost every year.

Better Decisions

The CRI is designed to inform financial institutions, insurers, policymakers, and other decision-makers about climate risks and resilience strategies for coastal areas. This platform enables communities to be more resilient while protecting and restoring nature.

Better
Outcomes

Better Outcomes

The CRI provides data on the benefits of resilient ecosystems to climate vulnerable coastal communities. This data supports decision-makers in integrating Nature-based Solutions into tools that minimise risk, build resilient communities, and restore ecosystems.

$363 billion

The protective benefits of coastal ecosystems are rarely accounted for. The international community spends $4-10 billion each year on conservation and management. However, proper ecosystem restoration requires $100 billion annually. 

The Future
Of Coastal
Flooding

The CRI is a collaborative effort between our data partners with generous support from our funding partners:

Data partners

Funding partners

The Coastal Risk Index provides a detailed way to assess coastal flooding in the context of climate change, modelling flood hazard and storm surge in current conditions and in possible future climate scenarios.

The following map shows the CRI’s data on the impact of losing mangrove protection (on the left), as the extent and depth of flooding increases if mangroves are not present (on the right). By quantifying the value of reef and mangrove ecosystems for their flood resilience benefits, the Index can help catalyse their restoration and protection across the world.

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coastal flooding with ecosystems
coastal flooding without ecosystems
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About visualization

These visualisations map the future without (left) and with (right) mangroves present to demonstrate the importance of coastal habitats for reducing risks. The data for this map represents a timeframe of 2030 and a storm return period of 100 years. Darker blue layers indicate higher flood depths. Swipe using the middle arrows to compare the two scenarios for Haiphong, Vietnam and Cape Coral, Florida.

0m 1m 2m 3m 4m 5m+
Flood Depth

These visualisations map the future without (left) and with (right) mangroves present to demonstrate the importance of coastal habitats for reducing risks. The data for this map represents a timeframe of 2030 and a storm return period of 100 years. Darker blue layers indicate higher flood depths. Swipe using the middle arrows to compare the two scenarios for Haiphong, Vietnam and Cape Coral, Florida.

About This Platform

The Coastal Risk Index is an open-source data platform designed to inform insurers, investors, policymakers, banks, and other decision-makers about climate risks and resilience strategies for coastal areas. The ultimate outcome we seek is to enable communities to be more resilient while protecting and restoring nature.

MethodologyMethodology
  • Insurers

    Integrate ecosystems in risk models, develop new products and more accurate pricing, and work with clients to manage their risks.

  • Investors

    Understand how ecosystem health affects investments in the long-term, map future liabilities, and develop innovative finance solutions that incorporate nature.

  • Governments & Policymakers

    Understand how ecosystem health affects investments in the long-term, map future liabilities, and develop innovative finance solutions that incorporate nature.

  • Development
    Banks

    Manage long-term risks to investment portfolios, target development assistance towards nature-based resilience solutions, and gain a clearer understanding of economic benefits of coastal habitats.

User
Benefits

The CRI is open to all. Users can view flood hazard maps for any coastal area and understand the avoided costs nature provides to both people and assets. Users can also examine areas of high social vulnerability and where investing in coastal Nature-based Solutions plays a role in protecting communities.

Financial institutions, insurers, governments, and development banks can leverage the data and insights on this platform for policy and product development.

Features

Access the CRI platform to view and interact with these features and functionality.

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View rankings of countries on issues ranging from assets at risk to climate impacts on coastal populations

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Explore flood maps to understand hazards in different flooding intensities and future climate change scenarios

2/6

View projections such as the number of people and the value of coastal assets at risk of flooding in 2030 and 2050

3/6

Access tools to understand the economic effects of ecosystem degradation on blue economy sectors

4/6

Assess how the presence of ecosystems reduce hazards for coastal communities

5/6

Explore ORRAA’s resilience projects worldwide and see their impact on people and ecosystems

6/6

Evolving The
Coastal Risk
Index

As part of the ongoing evolution of the CRI, we used the Dominican Republic as a case study to showcase where we would like to evolve the flood model and its data.

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