Coastal Zone

Group: Climate change impact on coastal area in Thailand

Member:    Dr.Sompratana Ritphring (Kasetsart University), Dr. Keiko Udo (Tohoku University)

Background

Coastal areas are sensitive, vulnerable, often extremely dynamic and stressed ecosystems. Increasingly coastal areas will be subjected to the impacts of climate change especially related to the sea level rise. It is anticipated that global warming will bring about accelerated sea-level rise through thermal expansion of ocean water and melting of land-based glaciers, and climate change such as changes in precipitation and tropical cyclones. Coastal areas therefore require attention in management and planning procedures, especially where the coastal areas are subjects to significant human resource usage and development pressure.

Thailand is littoral country with the coastal zone including the Gulf of Thailand Coast and the Andaman sea Coast. They are economic important areas where 23 provinces are located with approximately 12 millions of population living in the areas. The coastal are characterized by geologic nature of landforms as sandy beach and dunes, coastal wetland, rocky coast, cliff coast and islands.

Like most countries, coastal development in Thailand subject to significant adverse effects from natural coastal hazards. The approximately 2,700 km length of coastline has been developed significantly since the last 3 decades; moreover, population growth and the demand for coastal living are ongoing pressures. Therefore, the potential impacts of climate change on existing coastal hazards are likely to increase.

Therefore, the impacts of sea-level rise induced by climate change on sandy beaches are assessed in this study in order to project the future shoreline due to the sea level rise along Thailand’s coast.

Objectives

This research aims to conduct the climate change impact assessment on coastal zone in Thailand through field investigation and modeling.

  1. Clarify long-term trend of sea level.
  2. Create coastal data set
  3. Project shoreline respond to sea level rise
  4. Propose some adaptation measures

 

Methodology

The projection shoreline analyzed by Bruun’s rule based on the assumption that in response to sea level rise, shore profiles would respond by acting to maintain their morphology relative to still water levels. Moreover, the influences of land subsidence associated with sea level rise were taken into account in this study. The 27 representative beaches were selected for modeling. Beach slope were observed as well as grain size sampling for model input. Wave buoys located along the coast were used for wave height and period detection.

Publications

  1. Ritphring, S., Putcharapitchakon, K. and Udo, K., Coastal erosion and sea-level change in the Lower Gulf of Thailand, Proceeding of The 9th International Symposium on Southeast Asian Water Environment, Bangkok, Thailand, Dec 2011.
  2. Putcharapitchakon, K. Ritphring, S. and Udo, K., Sea-level variations in the Andaman Sea, Proceeding of The 17th National Convention on Civil Engineering, Udonthani, Thailand, May 2012.(In Thai)
  3. Ritphring, S. and Udo, K., Coastal Disaster in the Upper Gulf of Thailand, Proceeding of The 8th Research Symposium on Multi-hazards around the Pacific Rim, Sendai, Japan, Sep 2012.
  4. Putcharapitchakon, K. and Ritphring, S., Sea-level change in Thailand, Ladkrabang engineering journal, Vol.23, No.3, pp.55-60, Sep 2012. (In Thai)
  5. Yoshida, J., Ritphring, S., Udo, K., Kazama, S. and Mano, A., Future coastal erosion due to sea level rise in Krabi and Pattaya in Thailand, Proceeding of Asia Oceania Geosciences Society 2013, Brisbane, Australia, June 2013.
  6. Putcharapitchakon, K. Ritphring, S. and Udo, K., The Impact of Sea-Level Rise on Andaman Coast, Proceeding of The 5th National Convention on Water Resources Engineering, Chiangrai, Thailand, Sep 2013. (In Thai)
  7. Ritphring, S. and Udo, K., The Projection of Shoreline Based on the MIROC-ESM Climate Model along the Coast of Thailand, 2014 Ocean Sciences Meeting, Feb 2014 . (Accepted)
  8. Ritphring, S. and Udo, K., Sea level rise impact on coastal erosion along Thailand’s coast, Hydrological Research Letter (Special issue) (Submitted)