Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

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Ocean and Coastal Management

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Review

Scientometric review of climate-change extreme impacts on coastal cities

Emilio Laino a, Gregorio Iglesias a, b, *
a
School of Engineering and Architecture & Environmental Research Institute, MaREI, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland
b
University of Plymouth, School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics, Marine Building, Drake Circus, United Kingdom

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: The generalised sea level and temperature rise, along with the increasing frequency and intensity of storms and
Climate change extreme impacts temperature extremes, trigger a variety of climate-change-related impacts on coastal communities, such as
Coastal flooding coastal flooding and erosion, pluvial and river flooding, heat waves, cold spells, droughts, and landslides. These
Coastal erosion
events can rapidly cascade into additional challenges and have a profound impact on the coastal zone. Many
Coastal cities
studies have focused on the causes and consequences of climate change for coastal cities in the past decades. As a
Bibliometric analysis
Scientometric analysis result, the number of forecasts, risk assessments, literature reviews, and methodologies has increased. This
comprehensive review comprises the key findings of a systematic analysis of the scientific literature on extreme
impacts of climate change on coastal cities. After a bibliometric analysis, which yields 2321 papers in 470
journals from 1976 to 2021, a scientometric analysis is carried out. There is wide geographical diversity, with
publications from 97 countries. In terms of numbers and nationalities, the USA was followed by China, UK,
Australia, and Indonesia. The scarcity of papers from developing countries is apparent. “Storm” and “risk
assessment” are the top keywords regarding frequency of occurrence and relationships with other keywords. The
main research areas for this topic are risk assessment, climate-change-related hazards and their drivers,
modelling tools, disaster control and prevention measures, climate change policies and urban planning. Finally,
research gaps are identified, and future research directions proposed, e.g., emerging integrated coastal zone
management tools and the impacts on climate change on developing countries.

1. Introduction Today, institutional investors participate in a wide-ranging number of

initiatives and organizations to address climate-related risks in their
The development of coastal cities continues to grow around the portfolios, such as Climate Action 100+, the Montreal Carbon Pledge,
world (Neumann et al., 2015), whereas the frequency and severity of the Ceres Investor Network on Climate Risk, UN Principles for Respon­
extreme events are increasing as a result of climate change (Dale et al., sible Investment (PRI), Global Sustainable Investment Forums (SIFs),
2001; Knutson et al., 2010). As the population exposed to mean and UNEP FI, Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change (IIGCC), and
Extreme Sea Level (ESL) events is expected to grow significantly many others. For instance, the G20 Financial Stability Board’s Task
throughout the 21st century (Oppenheimer et al., 2019), there is a Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures released recommenda­
continuous increase of studies focused on climate change and its con­ tions in June 2017, which highlighted the importance of using scenario
sequences to coastal populations (Kulp and Strauss, 2019; Lima and analysis to assess climate change-related impacts within the financial
Bonetti, 2020; Oppenheimer et al., 2019; Wong et al., 2014). sector (“Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures”). Also, the
Research on climate change impacts at global scale dates back European Commission has recently (March 2018) published a series of
approximately to 1970s (Zillman, 2009). Since its roots, the literature on measures to enhance the ESG transparency of benchmark methodologies
this topic has grown exponentially and is quite well established nowa­ and an initiative to put forward standards for the methodology of
days. The growth in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) in­ low-carbon benchmarks in the Union, in alignment with its action plan
vestment, and in particular climate change, have caused more funds to Financing Sustainable Growth.
be channelled to the scientific research in the last years and therefore Nevertheless, ESG investment by corporations is not the only reason
may have contributed to the acceleration in the scientific production. behind the boom of climate-change-related publications. A large set of

* Corresponding author. School of Engineering and Architecture & Environmental Research Institute, MaREI, University College Cork, Cork, Ireland.
E-mail address: [Link]@[Link] (G. Iglesias).

[Link]
Received 1 March 2023; Received in revised form 13 June 2023; Accepted 13 June 2023
Available online 18 June 2023
0964-5691/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY license ([Link]
E. Laino and G. Iglesias Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

milestones regarding the fight against climate change may have On the one hand, the extreme impacts enhanced by climate change
contributed to the social conscience: from the creation of the Intergov­ include heatwaves, cold spells, droughts, heavy precipitation, pluvial
ernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988, bringing together floods, river floods, coastal flooding and coastal erosion in general terms
thousands of scientists to assess scientific evidence on climate change (Seneviratne et al., 2021). Moreover, more than one of the extreme
and its impacts, and the signature of the United Nations Framework events above may occur simultaneously, leading to compound events.
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by countries around the Certain impacts are of particular concern to coastal communities, such
world in 1992 to the ratification of the European Green Deal in 2020 and as coastal flooding, coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion and any others
the publication of the 6th Assessment Report on Climate Change be­ that may affect coastal ecosystems (Costa et al., 2023; González
tween 2021 and 2022. Hernández et al., 2023; Rodriguez-Delgado et al., 2020; Spalding et al.,
There has not been found a publication analysing the former sources 2014). In this context, coastal flooding is defined as a temporary inun­
together. In this context, the purpose of this article is to develop a bib­ dation of a terrestrial area that is not normally submerged and is caused
liometric and scientometric analysis of the literature regarding extreme by the combination of Relative Sea Level Rise (RSLR), tides, storm surge
climate change impacts on coastal cities, with a particular focus on sea and wave setup at the shoreline (Kirezci et al., 2020; Koks et al., 2019;
level rise, coastal flooding and coastal erosion, in order to (i) review the Melet et al., 2018; Pollard et al., 2019; Ranasinghe et al., 2021; Vitousek
spatial and temporal evolution of research, (ii) identify the major themes et al., 2017; Vousdoukas et al., 2018, 2020). Coastal erosion may be
of current research, (iii) summarize and compare research through defined as the net removal of material from one coastal location to
meta-analysis and qualitative review, and (iv) suggest future research another (Bergillos et al., 2020a, 2020b). It is driven by many natural
directions. It is expected that the scientific literature on climate change factors including storm surge, changes in wave energy, sediment supply
and coastal cities had grown rapidly in recent decades, reflecting the and sea level rise (Dawson et al., 2009; Hinkel et al., 2013; Mentaschi
increasing recognition of the risks and challenges posed by climate et al., 2017; Penland et al., 2005; Wong et al., 2014). Coastal erosion is
change to urban coastal areas. A scientometric analysis of this literature generally accompanied by shoreline retreat, which may occur as a
can reveal the patterns, trends, and gaps in research on this topic, gradual process (e.g., due to sea level rise) or as an episodic event due to
providing insights into the knowledge structure and evolution of the ESLs or coastal flooding (Ranasinghe, 2016; Ranasinghe et al., 2021).
field and facilitating evidence-based policy and decision-making. On the other hand, as a consequence of socioeconomic development,
The increase in the frequency and intensity of storms, in addition to certain human-related drivers may produce a number of impacts on
the incessant sea level rise, are the main drivers behind the increase in coastal systems related to sediment delivery, nutrient loads, and hypoxia
the number and severity of ESL, coastal flooding and coastal erosion (He and Silliman, 2019). Human activities in drainage basins and coastal
episodes (Crespi et al., 2020; IPCC, 2021; Peduzzi, 2005; Smith, 2017). plains impact the coastal zone by changing the delivery of sediment to
Information on past events and studies is of interest in assessing the the coast (Syvitski et al., 2005; Walling, 2006). Shoreline changes as a
evolution of the problem. In this regard, literature and bibliographic result of urbanisation, construction of ports, sediment trapping behind
reviews, risk assessments (including hazard, vulnerability and exposure dams, water diversion for irrigation, sand and gravel mining in river
assessments (Nguyen et al., 2016)), climate change reports, and climate channels, and soil erosion due to land use changes all affect sediment
projections are valuable information sources. delivery. Besides, riverine discharge of nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus)
In general, social, economic, and environmental losses due to the onto coastal areas as a result of fertilizer use in agriculture and fossil fuel
destruction of land, damage to urban assets, seawater intrusion, harmful emissions may impact coastal ecosystems (Beusen et al., 2016). Indeed,
biological blooms, and pollution are some of the main impacts facing excessive concentrations of nutrients in coastal waters, which cause
coastal cities and communities. These impacts may stem from either eutrophication and the subsequent decomposition of organic matter, are
global warming (climate change), human activities, or a combination of the primary cause of decreased oxygen concentration (hypoxia), thereby
both (Fig. 1). However, in this study we will exclude those impacts posing a serious threat to marine life (UN Environment, 2019; Vollen­
related exclusively to anthropogenic action. weider, 1992). How the anthropogenic action affects coastal systems is a

Fig. 1. Summary scheme of the impacts on coastal cities and their drivers.

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E. Laino and G. Iglesias Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

complex field, and its analysis is out of the scope of this work. publications with blank bibliographic fields, and studies regarding
The sub-domain of this field of research focusing on extreme impacts human-related drivers exclusively, as mentioned in the Introduction –
exacerbated by climate change is developing fast, and the analysis in this the final dataset was reduced to 2321 results. The bibliographic details
work will illustrate its momentum. In Data collection, processing and of the reference database, including the list of authors, title, year of
analysis method, we discuss the methodology used to obtain the relevant publication, source title, volume, issue, page numbers, author affilia­
bibliometric data. In the Results section the meta-analysis of this liter­ tions, abstracts, author keywords, index keywords, list of references,
ature will show that, within the last two decades, the number of scien­ document type and some other details, were exported and analysed
tific studies on the topic has grown exponentially, with the hot topics using scientometric methods.
continually evolving and the geographical distribution of publications For the described dataset, scientometric methods are applied in Re­
retaining the aforementioned diversity. The Discussion section elabo­ sults to obtain high-level insights into the development of these research
rates on these findings and identifies certain topics which are currently domains. Apart from elementary statistics and standard visualization
underrepresented and may warrant further attention by the research graphs, we apply the VOSviewer software (van Eck and Waltman, 2010).
community. This open-access tool implements the visualization of similarities
approach (VOS) (Waltman et al., 2010) and is widely used to map
2. Materials and methods clustered networks of authors, journals, collaborating countries, and
co-citations. The VOS clustering methodology employed involves a
Bibliographic details of the scientific literature on climate change two-step process: the similarity calculation and the clustering. VOS­
extreme impacts on coastal cities in general and extreme sea levels, Viewer calculates similarities between pairs of documents using either
coastal flooding and coastal erosion in particular were identified and co-citation or co-occurrence data. Co-citation similarity measures the
retrieved from Scopus, one of the main databases of academic publica­ degree of overlap in the articles cited by two documents, indicating their
tion records (Mingers and Leydesdorff, 2015). relatedness. Co-occurrence similarity, on the other hand, quantifies the
Scopus encompasses a broad range of scientific literature, including extent to which two documents share common terms or keywords,
journals, conference papers, books, and patents. It covers multiple reflecting their thematic similarity. These similarity measures serve as
subject areas, making it a valuable resource for multidisciplinary the basis for subsequent clustering. Once the similarity matrix is
research. Complementarily, Scopus allows users to track citations, generated, VOSViewer applies clustering algorithms to group similar
analyse citation patterns, and measure the impact of scholarly works documents together. The software employs a variant of the MCL (Mar­
through metrics such as the h-index and citation counts. However, it kov Cluster) algorithm, which is an unsupervised clustering method
may not include all journals and publications worldwide, and some based on graph theory. The MCL algorithm simulates stochastic flow in a
niche or regional publications may be underrepresented or absent from graph, identifying clusters of highly interconnected nodes or documents.
the database. Citation data may not capture all forms of scholarly The resulting clusters represent groups of documents with significant
communication, such as preprints, non-peer-reviewed publications, or similarities in terms of citation patterns or thematic content. Finally,
works outside the Scopus database. three visualizations referred to as the network visualization, the overlay
Advanced search capabilities, allowing users to conduct complex visualization, and the density visualization can be constructed from the
queries and refine search results based on various criteria are offered in results.
Scopus. It provides access to abstracts, full-text articles, and biblio­ The outputs include (i) rankings on the most cited and prolific
graphic details. However, the search algorithms and indexing process publishers, the most cited articles, and the most important journals; (ii)
may occasionally result in false positives or missed relevant articles, visualization graphs illustrating the distribution of scientific publica­
necessitating careful selection and interpretation of search results. tions over the years, and the geographical distribution of both the ci­
Moreover, while Scopus indexes open access journals and publications, tations and articles produced using the ArcGIS Pro software; and (iii) the
not all content in the database is freely accessible. Some articles may be results from the application of the VOSviewer software on the research
behind paywalls or require individual subscriptions, making it chal­ topic showing the authors network, the countries heat-map network,
lenging for users without institutional access or subscriptions to retrieve and heat-maps networks of frequently-occurring terms in the dataset.
full-text versions of certain publications. Moreover, the relationship between the main milestones on the fight
While Scopus provides a wealth of bibliographic information, it may against climate change (Table 1) and the evolution of the number of
lack certain types of data that researchers might require (e.g., detailed publications regarding climate change extreme impacts on coastal cities
experimental data, raw datasets, or supplementary materials associated is analysed in Discussion.
with publications may not be readily available through Scopus).
Although Scopus includes publications from various languages, its 3. Results
coverage is biased toward English-language literature. This language
bias may result in the underrepresentation of research published in other The yearly distribution of publications from 1976 to 2021 is illus­
languages, limiting access to non-English sources. In addition, as with trated in Fig. 2. The first publication, “Effects of Hurricane Eloise on
any bibliographic database, Scopus may be subject to inherent biases in beach and coastal structures, Florida Panhandle”, was published by R.A.
publication patterns, citation practices, and author demographics. These Morton in the United States in 1976 (Morton, 1976). Until 1989, when a
biases can impact the representation of research from certain regions, relative peak of 13 publications was reached, the scientific production
disciplines, or research communities. regarding extreme climate change impacts on coastal cities remains low.
To obtain the reference database for the previous topics, the Thereafter, and between 1989 and 1997, the number of publications is
following combination of search terms was used in a title-abstract- not higher than 15 (1991) and significant trends are not observed.
keyword search: TITLE-ABS-KEY(climate AND change AND extreme However, the graphic starts to show a general uptrend practically at the
AND impact OR event AND coastal OR coast AND city OR town) OR TITLE- end of the century. In general, the analysis indicates an increasing
ABS-KEY(extreme AND sea OR water AND level AND city OR town) OR research trend in recent years. In fact, the cumulative number of pub­
TITLE-ABS-KEY(coastal OR coast AND flooding OR flood AND city OR lications from 1976 to 2016 (1024) is less than the number of works
town) OR TITLE-ABS-KEY(coastal OR coast AND erosion AND city OR published within the last five years (1297). Exceptionally, the number of
town). The search for establishing the dataset used in this article was last publications decreased substantially in 2016 compared to 2015. The
updated in December 2021, considering only texts in English. A total of surge of studies in the last five years (2017–2021) appears to be the most
3811 results were initially obtained. After screening out the scientific pronounced of all by far.
publications which were not relevant to the study – unrelated topics, Despite the boom registered during the last lustrum, most of the

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E. Laino and G. Iglesias Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

Table 1 between 2008 and 2014. In the article “Future flood losses in major
Milestones to climate change fight which may be contributed to the social coastal cities (Hallegatte et al., 2013)”, published in the journal Nature
conscience on the matter. Climate Change in 2013, S. Hallegatte, C. Green, R. Nicholls, et J.
Year Milestone Corfee-Morlot provide a quantification of present and future flood losses
1979 First World Climate Conference (WCC-1), as “a world conference of
in the 136 largest coastal cities, accumulating up to 1034 citations at the
experts on climate and mankind”. moment of writing this article and ranking the highest in the dataset.
1980 Establishment of the World Climate Research Program (WCRP), to help The following articles in the list have also a great number of citations –
to coordinate global climate research. ranging between 459 and 204 –, although substantially lower than the
1988 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) foundation,
top. Most of the publications included in the table are related to the
bringing together thousands of scientists to assess scientific evidence on
climate change and its impacts. increasing flood risk in the coastal cities.
1990 IPCC First Assessment Report. An analysis of the sources may provide guidance to identify repu­
1992 Establishment of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate table scholarly journals for publication. The 2231 documents included
Change (UNFCCC), as an international environmental treaty to combat in the analysis dataset were published in 1271 scientific sources (470
“dangerous human interference with the climate system".
1995 WCRP Coupled Model Intercomparison Project, a collaborative
journals), indicating a wide dissemination. The top 20 journals by ci­
framework designed to improve knowledge of climate change. tations in the field of climate change extreme impacts on coastal cities
IPCC Second Assessment Report. are presented in Table 3. The top five consists of the journals Natural
1997 The UNFCCC adopts the Kyoto Protocol, the world’s first greenhouse Hazards, Water (Switzerland), Journal of Coastal Research, Ocean and
gas emissions treaty.
Coastal Management and Sustainability (Switzerland), with 66, 43, 41,
1998 Launch of the Global Monitoring for Environmental Security (GMES),
the EU’s Earth monitoring initiative. 35 and 28 publications respectively, accounting for the 17% of the
2001 IPCC Third Assessment Report. published work, approximately. The h-index according to Google
2005 C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group foundation, a global network of Scholar and the Impact Factors on Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus are
cities fighting climate change. also included in the table. The data have been retrieved from the SCI
The EU launches its Emissions Trading System.
Journal database and the values were last measured in 2020 (SCI
2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report.
The EU adopts its 2020 climate and energy package, with three key Journal). The five journals with the highest h-indices are Science of the
targets: reduce EU greenhouse gas emissions by 20% compared to 1990; Total Environment (244), Journal of Hydrology (226), Water Resources
increase the share of renewables to 20% of EU energy use; and improve Research (217), Climatic Change (188), and Journal of Environmental
energy efficiency by 20%.
Management (179). The previous journals are also the top five regarding
2009 UN climate change conference in Copenhagen ends without an overall
agreement on binding emissions cuts. the Scopus and WoS Impact Factors, although the order is slightly
2014 IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. different: Science of the Total Environment (7.937; 6.551), Journal of
Establishment of the Copernicus programme (previously known as Environmental Management (7.058; 5.647), Journal of Hydrology
GMES) (6.002; 4.500), Water Resources Research (5.549; 4.309), and Climatic
2015 The Paris Agreement is agreed and entering into force on 4th November
Change (5.248; 4.134), with the Scopus and WoS Impact Factors indi­
2016.
Launch of SDGs. cated respectively in the brackets. However, it has been observed that
2017 China launches its carbon emission trading market. some of the most impactful articles had been published in other relevant
2018 The European Commission (EC) launches a series of measures to journals, e.g., Nature, Nature Communications, Nature Climate Change and
enhance the ESG.
Science.
Countries agree on the detailed rules and guidelines to make the Paris
Agreement work in practice across the world.
Altogether, the network of countries associated with publications on
2020 European Green Deal is approved on the goal to make the EU climate- climate-change extreme impacts on coastal cities from VOSviewer
neutral by 2050. (showing countries with a minimum of five publications) and the stan­
2021/ IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. dard graphs illustrating the geographical distribution of the number of
2022
citations and publications show that the countries where the research is
more productive include the United Stated of America, United Kingdom,
articles accumulating the highest numbers of citations were published China, France, Netherlands, Australia, Italy, India and Indonesia. Fig. 3
before 2015. In Table 2, the publications accumulating more than 200 illustrates the most active countries in the research domain and their
total citations in the dataset are sorted. Information on the authors, title, cooperation, including 44 countries (amongst 135 identified in the
year of publication, source title, number of citations, and document type dataset) with at least 10 publications and 50 citations, and excluding
are also provided. They are 13 in total, of which 10 were published countries that did not have a cooperation relation. The node sizes,

Fig. 2. Evolution of publications on climate-change extreme impacts in coastal cities between 1976 and 2021.

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E. Laino and G. Iglesias Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

Table 2
Articles accumulating more than 200 citations in Scopus (December 2021).
Authors Title Year Source title Citation Reference

Hallegatte, S.; Green, C.; et al. Future flood losses in major coastal cities 2013 Nature Climate Change 1034 Hallegatte et al.
(2013)
Sallenger, A; Doran, K.; and Hotspot of accelerated sea-level rise on the Atlantic coast of 2012 Nature Climate Change 459 Sallenger et al.
Howd, P. North America (2012)
Hanson, S.; Nicholls, R.; et al. A global ranking of port cities with high exposure to climate 2011 Climatic Change 408 Hanson et al.
extremes (2011)
Reid, C; O’Neill, M; et al. Mapping community determinants of heat vulnerability 2009 Environmental Health Perspectives 359 Reid et al.
(2009)
Douglas, I.; Alam K.; et al. Unjust waters: Climate change, flooding and the urban poor in 2008 Environment and Urbanization 359 Douglas et al.
Africa (2008)
Kunkel, K.E.; Pielke Jr., R.A.; Temporal fluctuations in weather and climate extremes that 1999 Bulletin of the American 355 Kunkel et al.
and Changnon, S.A. cause economic and human health impacts: A review Meteorological Society (1999)
E. Balica. et al. A flood vulnerability index for coastal cities and its use in 2012 Natural Hazards 326 Balica et al.
assessing climate change impacts (2012)
Balica, S.F.; Wright, N.G.; and Sinking cities in Indonesia: ALOS PALSAR detects rapid 2013 Remote Sensing of Environment 286 Chaussard et al.
van der Meulen, F. subsidence due to groundwater and gas extraction (2013)
Vitousek, S.; Barnard, P.L.; Doubling of coastal flooding frequency within decades due to 2017 Scientific Reports 268 Vitousek et al.
et al. sea-level rise (2017)
Clark, G.E.; Moser, S.C.; et al. Assessing the vulnerability of coastal communities to extreme 1998 Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies 260 Clark et al.
storms: The case of reverse, MA., USA for Global Change (1998)
Aerts, J.C.J. H.; Botzen, W.J. Evaluating flood resilience strategies for coastal megacities 2014 Science 258 Aerts et al.
W.; et al. (2014)
Gornitz, V. Global coastal hazards from future sea level rise 1991 Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, 215 Gornitz (1991)
Palaeoecology
Revi, A. Climate change risk: An adaptation and mitigation agenda for 2008 Environment and Urbanization 204 Revi (2008)
Indian cities

colours, and connecting lines in the cooperation network reflect the A meta-analysis of the keywords included in the scientific publica­
number of publications, collaboration clusters, and strength of collab­ tions may be used to reveal the “hot topics”. In this vein, Fig. 7 shows the
orations, respectively. Figs. 4 and 5 show the complete geographical network of keywords associated with publications on climate change
distribution of the number of publications and citations by country, extreme impacts on coastal cities, and Fig. 8, the corresponding heat­
respectively. The United States of America dominates the scene with 631 map. Only the keywords which appeared in at least 15 publications of
works published and 11362 citations, whereas the second and third the dataset are showed in the graph, representing 356 out of the 12142
place are occupied by the United Kingdom and China, with 5030 and terms included in the dataset. As previously, the node sizes, colours, and
2551 citations, respectively. connecting lines reflect the number of keywords, relationship clusters,
Similarly, Fig. 6 shows the network of authors who have written at and strength of the links in the network, respectively. Some of the most
least 3 publications and accumulated at least 15 citations. Out of the recurring terms and their occurrences are presented in Table 4. The
6863 authors included in the dataset, 216 meet the threshold. However, analysis of the clusters identified shows how the research topics may be
the largest set of related authors included 127 of them, represented in classified within six categories. The largest cluster (red) incorporates a
figure. As in the previous graph, the node sizes, colours, and connecting variety of keywords related to policy making and planning (e.g., climate
lines in the network reflect the number of publications, collaboration change adaptation, mitigation, adaptative management, sustainable
clusters, and strength of collaborations, respectively. The author who development, urban planning, resilience, water management, regional
has accumulated more publications in the research topic is Mohammad planning, decision making, risk assessment, strategic approach).
Karamouz, from the University of Tehran, with 22 published documents, “Rivers”, “catchments”, “water supply”, “groundwater”, “runoff”, “river
including articles related to coastal flooding resilience (Karamouz et al., discharge”, “urban flood”, “aquifers”, “hydrology” and other water-
2019; Mohammad and Zahra, 2017), coastal flooding modelling (Kar­ related terms are covered by the green cluster. The third cluster (dark
amouz and Fereshtehpour, 2019; Mohammad et al., 2017), climate blue) includes keywords corresponding to coastal erosion and coast
change impacts on coastal flood vulnerability (Zahmatkesh and Kar­ morphology, such us “accretion”, “barrier island”, “beach erosion”,
amouz, 2017), and coastal flooding risk management (Mohammad and “beach nourishment”, “breakwaters”, “coastal engineering”, “coastal
Zahra, 2020), for instance. Ning Lin (Princeton University) has worked management”, “land reclamation”, “satellite imagery”, “sediment” and
on impactful articles studying extreme storms and their consequences on “shoreline change”, inter alia. Topics related to climatology and mete­
the rainfall; extreme sea levels; and coastal flooding (Garner et al., 2017; orology are well covered by the yellow cluster: “air temperature”,
Lin and Shullman, 2017; Marsooli et al., 2019; Marsooli and Lin, 2018; “climate models”, “extreme event/precipitation/rainfall”, “forecasting”,
Yin et al., 2021). Xiuquan Wang (University of Prince Edward Island) “frequency analysis”, “precipitation”, or “return period” are some ex­
has developed his research on, inter alia, regional changes in tempera­ amples of this. The cluster coloured in light blue is apparently related to
ture and precipitation (and other climatic variables) extremes through climate-related hazards and risk in the USA, as it includes, for example,
downscaling methods (Zhou et al., 2018a, 2018b; Zhu et al., 2017, “coastal flooding”, “embankments”, “Florida (USA)”, “hurricanes”,
2018) and occurrences of droughts under climatic change (Sun et al., “Hurricane Sandy”, “Hurricane Katrina”, “levees”, “New York”, “New
2019). Robert J. Nicholls (University of East Anglia) has worked on a Orleans”, “storm surge” and “United States”. The last cluster (violet) of
number of global studies regarding the impacts of climate change on research hot terms does not seem to focus on any topic in particular and
coastal systems, e.g., coastal zones (Nicholls and Cazenave, 2010), may be understood as a cluster connecting the remaining part of the
coastal cities (Hallegatte et al., 2013), wetlands (Nicholls, 2004; Nich­ network.
olls et al., 1999), and the adaptation costs, among other topics (Hinkel Finally, it has been observed how the research topics have evolved
et al., 2014). Last, but not least, Zahra Zahmatkesh (McMaster Univer­ between 1976 and 1991, 1992–2001, 2002–2006, 2007–2011,
sity) has delved into the effects of climate change on urban storm water 2012–2016 and 2017–2021 (Fig. 9). In the first period (1976–1991), the
runoff and their mitigation (Zahra et al., 2015a, 2015b). most recurrent terms are mainly associated to the domain of coastal

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E. Laino and G. Iglesias Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

Table 3 do not show the boom of a new group of keywords as in the previous
Twenty journals with the highest number of publications of the dataset, cases. Instead, the heatmaps are very similar to the one corresponding to
including the scholarly metrics of h-index (from Google Scholar) and Impact the period (2007–2011), although the number of publications per year
Factor (from Web of Science and Scopus) retrieved from the SCI Journal data­ had significantly grown. This may reflect a period of knowledge
base([Link] Note that some values of the Impact Factor consolidation during the last decade.
were not available for the Web of Science browser.
Journal Number of h-index Impact Impact 4. Discussion
publications (Google Factor Factor
Scholar) (WoS) (Scopus)
The understanding of the impacts of climate change on coastal sys­
Natural Hazards 66 105 2.427 3.494
tems has continuously evolved since the first published studies
Water (Switzerland) 43 55 Not 3.287
available
regarding this matter. In this sense, the chronological alignment of
Journal of Coastal 41 90 0.793 0.885 certain milestones and the corresponding variations in the number of
Research publications suggest a connection worth exploring. For example, the
Ocean and Coastal 35 84 2.482 3.581 relative peak in the number of publications reached in 1989 coincides
Management
with the foundation of the IPCC in 1988, which brought together
Sustainability 28 85 2.576 3.659
(Switzerland) numerous scientists to assess scientific evidence on climate change and
International Journal 19 45 2.896 5.145 its impacts. This correlation could potentially be attributed to a shift in
of Disaster Risk research focus towards collaboration with the IPCC, leading to a tem­
Reduction porary increase in publications specifically related to coastal cities.
Science of the Total 17 244 6.551 7.937
Environment
Another noteworthy association is observed around the year 1997 when
Journal of Hydrology 15 226 4.500 6.002 the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
Coastal Engineering 14 110 4.119 5.078 (UNFCCC) adopted the Kyoto Protocol as the world’s first greenhouse
Journal of Coastal 14 39 1.374 1.823 gas emissions treaty. This milestone is followed by an increase in the
Conservation
number of publications for subsequent years. The adoption of the Kyoto
Natural Hazards and 14 99 3.102 4.202
Earth System Protocol likely drew attention to the impacts of climate change,
Sciences including those on coastal cities, prompting researchers to intensify their
Arabian Journal of 13 48 1.327 1.958 investigations and publish findings related to this crucial area. Similarly,
Geosciences in subsequent years, as the adoption of the UN Sustainable Development
Environmental Earth 13 118 2.180 2.851
Sciences
Goals (SDGs) and agreements such as the Paris Agreement gained
Journal of Flood Risk 13 36 3.066 3.641 prominence between 2015 and 2016, the number of publications related
Management to the impacts of climate change on coastal cities exhibited an upward
Climatic Change 11 188 4.134 5.248 trend, especially between 2017 and 2021. This suggests that global
WIT Transactions on 11 24 Not 0.43
climate change agreements and initiatives served as catalysts for
Ecology and the available
Environment increased research focus on the specific challenges faced by coastal cities
Environmental 10 109 Not 2.805 and their vulnerability to climate change, leading to the establishment of
Monitoring and available cities as relevant actors in the global climate change regime (Aust,
Assessment 2018). It is important to note that while these observations indicate a
Journal of 9 179 5.647 7.058
Environmental
general relationship between the milestones and the publication trends,
Management they do not establish a direct cause-and-effect relationship. Numerous
Water Resources 9 100 2.924 3.825 other factors, including regional research priorities, funding availability,
Management and evolving scientific paradigms, can also influence publication pat­
Water Resources 9 217 4.309 5.549
terns. Additionally, the number of publications alone does not capture
Research
the depth or quality of the research conducted.
In the literature, an event is generally considered extreme if the value
erosion (e.g., “coastal engineering”, “shore protection”, “tides”, “beach of a certain variable exceeds a threshold. The boundary between non-
erosion”, “coastal processes”, “beach”, “dune” and “barrier islands”), but extreme and extreme events is usually defined based on the conse­
also to the study of storms and floods (“meteorology-storms”, “water quences that these extreme values may trigger (e.g., health impacts,
waves”, “flood control”, “flood protection” and “storm surges”) and the irreversible damage to goods and property, biodiversity loss) (Senevir­
study cases of the Venice Lagoon (Italy) and Ocean City (Maryland, atne et al., 2012). In this vein, a large number of keywords are closely
USA). The second period (1992–2001) introduces a number of new related with the definition of extreme events and their consequences.
topics related to climate change (“greenhouse”, “global warming”, For example, keywords from yellow and light blue clusters may reflect
“climate”, “meteorology”, “pollution control” and “anthropogenic ef­ that much research is oriented towards these topics.
fect”). In the third period (2002–2006), keywords related to the USA and The frequency and intensity of some climate change extreme events
natural disasters are strongly linked, reflecting the impact of Hurricane are increasing due to climate change. Climate-change extreme impacts
Katrina (“United States”, “New Orleans”, “North America”, “natural may refer to the harmful effects of short-duration climate-change
disasters”, “hurricanes” and “disaster planning”). Furthermore, other extreme events which produce a certain level of damage – usually on the
topics related to probabilistic analysis and hazard modelling (“computer economy, society, environment, urbanisation or geomorphology.
simulation”, “joint probability”, “extreme event”, “geographic infor­ Climate-change extreme impacts are usually driven by severe storms,
mation systems” and “GIS”) and large geographical areas (“world”, “Far which lead to strong winds, high sea levels, intense rainfall, coastal
East”, “Asia”, “South America”, “Eurasia”, “Africa”, “Europe”, “western flooding and coastal erosion episodes, loss of ecosystems, salinisation of
hemisphere”) are also of relevance in this period. Although the term soils, ground and surface water, and impeded drainage. Moreover, light
“risk assessment” was present in the heatmap, it is in the period changes in some magnitudes may also lead to large impacts on fragile
(2007–2011) when this keyword is most recurrent, including some coastal systems. Changes in temperature, precipitation, substance con­
related topics (“risk management”, “vulnerability”, “risk perception”, centration or pH may produce large-scale effects, such as droughts and
and “risk factor”). The last two periods (2012–2016) and (2017–2021) eutrophication, leading to impacts on ecosystems, soil characteristics
and water availability, or even forest fires, algal blooms and fish kills

6
E. Laino and G. Iglesias Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

Fig. 3. Network visualization of countries/regions associated with publications regarding climate-change extreme impacts on coastal cities.

Fig. 4. Geographical distribution of publications.

Fig. 5. Geographical distribution of citations.

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E. Laino and G. Iglesias Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

Fig. 6. Network visualization of the authors associated with publications regarding climate-change extreme impacts on coastal cities.

Fig. 7. Network of keywords of publications on climate-change extreme impacts on coastal cities.

8
E. Laino and G. Iglesias Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

Fig. 8. Heatmap of keywords of publications on climate-change extreme impacts on coastal cities.

Conversely, certain human actions, such as beach nourishment to

Table 4
control erosion or, in particular, ecosystem-based approaches (e.g.,
More frequent keywords of the publications on climate-change
restoration of vegetation in dune and mangrove habitats) contribute to
extreme impacts on coastal cities.
the resilience of cities to climate change (Jin et al., 2015). However, in
Keywords Number of occurrences the scientometric analysis it is readily seen how most of the publications
Floods 652 focus on the characterisation of hazards and assessment of risks, whereas
Climate change 584 the number of publications relating to the development of coastal
Storms 314
adaptation solutions is far smaller. One possible explanation is the
Risk assessment 200
Coastal zone 275 complex nature of coastal adaptation solutions. Crafting effective stra­
Flood control 252 tegies that can withstand the dynamic nature of coastal ecosystems and
Sea-level rise 230 the multifaceted challenges they face often requires a multidisciplinary
Vulnerability 226
approach and extensive collaboration among researchers, policymakers,
United States 207
Storm surge 199
and stakeholders. The absence of substantial research in this area may
Urban area 165 suggest a need for enhanced collaboration and interdisciplinary efforts
Erosion 159 to tackle the intricate issues posed by coastal adaptation. Moreover, it is
Rain 142 plausible that the limited availability of funding and resources might be
Hurricanes 137
a contributing factor. Research endeavours aimed at developing viable
Disasters 137
adaptation solutions in coastal regions often demand substantial finan­
cial investment and logistical support. The comparatively smaller
(Vollenweider, 1992). On the coastlines of developed countries, changes number of publications in this domain may reflect the challenges that
in weather and climate extremes and sea level rise may impact the de­ researchers face in securing the necessary resources to undertake
mand for housing, recreational facilities, the capacity of the urban comprehensive studies and develop practical solutions. Notwith­
drainage systems to absorb storm water, the construction of renewable standing, the societal conscience is gradually evolving to apprehend new
energy infrastructure, and critical infrastructures such as transportation, concepts that have emerged in the urban planning and policy-making
ports, and naval bases (Hadley, 2009; Zellou and Rahali, 2019). landscape in recent years, such as climate-change adaptation, climate
Furthermore, some results and conclusions from research on inland resilience, adaptative management, sustainable development, or
cities may be applied to coastal cities. disaster prevention, inter alia (Kirby et al., 2021; McClatchey et al.,
Climate change effects do not take place alone. More often than not, 2014; Petzold and Ratter, 2015).
the impacts on cities are caused by a combination of climate change Climate change has sound impacts on coastal societies and greatly
effects and human drivers. For instance, the transformation of the coast attracts the interest of the scientific community and governments, result­
due to human action (e.g., keywords related to coastal protection ing in a frenetic scientific production. Although the number of publica­
schemes, ports and urbanization) modifies the development of climate tions that relate climate change and its impact on coastal systems is high,
change extreme events and determines the exposure and vulnerability of as can be deduced from this work, no publication has been found that
nearby cities. Moreover, other geohazards not necessarily related to performs a holistic meta-analysis of said works, in order to understand
climate change, such as earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic eruptions, their momentum. The novelty of this work lies in the unified and sys­
may increase the harmful potential of climate-change-related hazards tematic meta-analysis of how the study of climate change has developed
(e.g., flood risk (Cavalieri et al., 2015)) as a result of extensive changes and evolved from its roots to today throughout the world, by means of a
in the terrain level, the coastal morphology and the built environment of scientometric and bibliometric approach. Due to its complexity, the study
cities. In addition, the eventual failure of protection systems, e.g., of the impact of anthropogenic action on coastal systems has been left
breakwaters, levees and dams, may be expected to increase damage aside. Its analysis would complement to that developed here to finish
levels. understanding the evolution of the main challenges that coastal cities face.

9
E. Laino and G. Iglesias Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

Fig. 9. Temporal evolution of heatmaps of keywords of publications on climate-change extreme impacts on coastal cities.

5. Conclusions The most relevant publications, authors and research topics have
been identified and analysed. The journals Ocean and Coastal Manage­
The results shows that scientometric analysis can provide a valuable ment, Journal of Coastal Research, Natural Hazards, Water
tool for understanding the research landscape on climate change and (Switzerland) and Sustainability (Switzerland) were the venue for the
coastal cities, including the key themes, contributors, and impacts of the highest number of documents and considerable scholarly metrics. The
research, as well as the gaps and opportunities for further research. five authors who have accumulated more publications in the research
Scopus offers researchers a powerful tool for accessing, exploring, topic are Mohammad Karamouz (University of Tehran), Ning Lin
and analysing scholarly literature. It provides a wide range of features (Princeton University), Xiuquan Wang (University of Prince Edward
and functionalities for citation tracking, search, and retrieval. However, Island), Robert J. Nicholls (University of East Anglia) and Zahra Zah­
researchers should be aware of its limitations, including incomplete matkesh (McMaster University). Some of the most impactful publica­
coverage, language bias, data limitations, and potential biases in the tions encompassing the different research areas identified include
database. “Future flood losses in major coastal cities”, “Hotspot of accelerated sea-
The research interest in extreme impacts of climate change is high, as level rise on the Atlantic coast of North America”, “A global ranking of
evidenced by the number of publications, authors and citations. The port cities with high exposure to climate extremes”, “Mapping com­
results show in which manner authors collaborate, and how the key­ munity determinants of heat vulnerability” and “Unjust waters: Climate
words analysed are directly related to concepts of sea-level rise and change, flooding and the urban poor in Africa” (Douglas et al., 2008;
extreme events. The research topics associated to coastal flooding, Hallegatte et al., 2013; Hanson et al., 2011; Reid et al., 2009; Sallenger
coastal erosion and sea level rise were covered, and the trending topics et al., 2012).
and those less pursued so far were indicated. Hot topics of research are Regarding the geographical coverage, works tend to concentrate in a
mainly related to the assessment of climate-related hazards and risks, few regions, and there is a serious scarcity of studies published in English
policy making and planning, water-related topics, coastal management, in developing countries. USA, China, UK, Australia and Indonesia are the
climatology and meteorology. countries which concentrate most of the research. Many of the

10
E. Laino and G. Iglesias Ocean and Coastal Management 242 (2023) 106709

publications do not focus on coastal cities exclusively but on long coastal Cavalieri, F., Franchin, P., Ko, S., Giovinazzi, S., Hart, D., 2015. Probabilistic Assessment
of Increased Flooding Vulnerability in Christchurch City after the Canterbury 2010-
fringes where cities are included.
2011 Earthquake Sequence (New Zealand).
The results show how climate-change extreme impacts on coastal Chaussard, E., Amelung, F., Abidin, H., Hong, S.-H., 2013. Sinking cities in Indonesia:
cities are scoped by research, but also how the concepts and disciplines ALOS PALSAR detects rapid subsidence due to groundwater and gas extraction.
in the study of these impacts are related to each other through the Remote Sens. Environ. 128, 150–161. [Link]
Clark, G.E., Moser, S.C., Ratick, S.J., Dow, K., Meyer, W.B., Emani, S., Jin, W.,
different keywords and clusters which arose from the scientometric Kasperson, J.X., Kasperson, R.E., Schwarz, H.E., 1998. Assessing the vulnerability of
analysis. The number of scientific studies has evolved alongside the coastal communities to extreme storms: the case of revere, MA., USA. Mitig. Adapt.
growing societal conscience of the need to combat climate change over Strategies Glob. Change 3, 59–82. [Link]
Costa, Y., Martins, I., de Carvalho, G.C., Barros, F., 2023. Trends of sea-level rise effects
the last fifty years, since the foundation of the IPCC up to the ratification on estuaries and estimates of future saline intrusion. Ocean Coast Manag. 236,
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Climate-related Hazard Indices for Europe.
the characterisation of climate-related extreme events and hazards, Dale, V.H., Joyce, L.A., McNulty, S., Neilson, R.P., Ayres, M.P., Flannigan, M.D.,
rather than with coastal adaptation measures or the development of Hanson, P.J., Irland, L.C., Lugo, A.E., Peterson, C.J., Simberloff, D., Swanson, F.J.,
integrated coastal zone management tools. Stocks, B.J., Wotton, B.M., 2001. Climate Change and Forest Disturbances: climate
change can affect forests by altering the frequency, intensity, duration, and timing of
The synthesis carried out in this work by means of a bibliometric and fire, drought, introduced species, insect and pathogen outbreaks, hurricanes,
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Dawson, R.J., Dickson, M.E., Nicholls, R.J., Hall, J.W., Walkden, M.J.A., Stansby, P.K.,
the research to date, but also to helping scientists spot research gaps
Mokrech, M., Richards, J., Zhou, J., Milligan, J., Jordan, A., Pearson, S., Rees, J.,
which might otherwise be missed or to orientating new investigation. Bates, P.D., Koukoulas, S., Watkinson, A.R., 2009. Integrated analysis of risks of
The study of emerging integrated coastal zone management tools (e.g., coastal flooding and cliff erosion under scenarios of long term change. Clim. Change
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