The impact of climate change on coastal cities in the eastern Nile delta of Egypt

Abstract EN

Rising sea levels, along with more powerful and frequent storms, will result in not just coastal inundation, but also problems due to increased wave height and beach erosion.

offshore wave propagation in coastal regions is impacted by changes in water depth related to the bathymetry of the seabed and tides.

the coastal along the Nile Delta is extremely vulnerable to accelerated SLR (SLR) due to its low-lying topography, while at the same time the area has a high socio-economical and touristic value.

as a result, quantifying SLR effects on morph dynamics in this area is important to examine the relation between SLR, wave height, wave power, and currents.

coupled hydrodynamic (HD) and spectral wave (SW) numerical models are used to investigate the changes in waves, and currents when SLRS.

the efficacy of the coupled model is assessed by a comparison of simulated values with available field measurements.

for this coastal region, it is shown that waves and currents are sensitive to the trend in SLR and that the climate change scenario leads to a significant increase of extreme wave heights.

the results of the numerical model can be accepted where it is able to predict the characteristics of waves and currents and detect the harmful impact of SLR on the coastal area.