Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape Mitigations
Abstract The low‐lying, arid coastal regions of the Southern Mediterranean Basin, extending over 4,600 km, face daunting sea level rise and hydroclimatic changes due to shifting weather patterns. The impact of these factors on coastal urban buildings and infrastructure must be better understood. Ale...
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| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2025-02-01
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| Series: | Earth's Future |
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| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004883 |
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| author | Sara S. Fouad Essam Heggy Oula Amrouni Abderraouf Hzami Steffen Nijhuis Nesma Mohamed Ibrahim H. Saleh Seifeddine Jomaa Yasser Elsheshtawy Udo Weilacher |
| author_facet | Sara S. Fouad Essam Heggy Oula Amrouni Abderraouf Hzami Steffen Nijhuis Nesma Mohamed Ibrahim H. Saleh Seifeddine Jomaa Yasser Elsheshtawy Udo Weilacher |
| author_sort | Sara S. Fouad |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Abstract The low‐lying, arid coastal regions of the Southern Mediterranean Basin, extending over 4,600 km, face daunting sea level rise and hydroclimatic changes due to shifting weather patterns. The impact of these factors on coastal urban buildings and infrastructure must be better understood. Alexandria, a historic and densely populated port city in Egypt representative of several coastal towns in the Southern Mediterranean, has experienced over 280 building collapses along its shorelines over the past two decades, and the root causes are still under investigation. We examine the decadal changes in coastal and hydroclimatic drivers along the city's coastline using photogrammetric satellite images from 1974 to 2021. We explore the interconnectivity between shoreline retreat, ground subsidence, and building collapses. Our results suggest that collapses are correlated with severe coastal erosion driven by sediment imbalances resulting from decades of inefficient landscape management and urban expansion along the city's waterfront. This severe erosion, combined with sea level rise, increases seawater intrusion, raising groundwater levels in coastal aquifers. Degrading ground stability and accelerating corrosion in building foundations ultimately culminating in collapses. We identified a coastal area of high vulnerability with over 7,000 buildings at risk, surpassing any other vulnerable zone in the Mediterranean Basin. We propose cost‐effective and nature‐based techniques for coastal landscape adaptation to alleviate these dangers in Alexandria and other Southern Mediterranean cities facing similar climatic challenges. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-1b6200544b8544468e239590046c8d3b |
| institution | DOAJ |
| issn | 2328-4277 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | Wiley |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Earth's Future |
| spelling | doaj-art-1b6200544b8544468e239590046c8d3b2025-08-20T03:11:25ZengWileyEarth's Future2328-42772025-02-01132n/an/a10.1029/2024EF004883Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape MitigationsSara S. Fouad0Essam Heggy1Oula Amrouni2Abderraouf Hzami3Steffen Nijhuis4Nesma Mohamed5Ibrahim H. Saleh6Seifeddine Jomaa7Yasser Elsheshtawy8Udo Weilacher9Department of Landscape Architecture and Transformation School of Engineering and Design Technical University of Munich Munich GermanyViterbi School of Engineering University of Southern California Los Angeles CA USANational Institute of Marine Sciences and Technologies University of Carthage Carthage TunisiaNational Institute of Marine Sciences and Technologies University of Carthage Carthage TunisiaDepartment of Urbanism Delft University of Technology Delft The NetherlandsInstitute of Graduate Studies and Research Alexandria University Alexandria EgyptInstitute of Graduate Studies and Research Alexandria University Alexandria EgyptDepartment of Aquatic Ecosystem Analysis and Management Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research ‐ UFZ Magdeburg GermanySchool of Architecture Planning and Preservation Columbia University New York City NY USADepartment of Landscape Architecture and Transformation School of Engineering and Design Technical University of Munich Munich GermanyAbstract The low‐lying, arid coastal regions of the Southern Mediterranean Basin, extending over 4,600 km, face daunting sea level rise and hydroclimatic changes due to shifting weather patterns. The impact of these factors on coastal urban buildings and infrastructure must be better understood. Alexandria, a historic and densely populated port city in Egypt representative of several coastal towns in the Southern Mediterranean, has experienced over 280 building collapses along its shorelines over the past two decades, and the root causes are still under investigation. We examine the decadal changes in coastal and hydroclimatic drivers along the city's coastline using photogrammetric satellite images from 1974 to 2021. We explore the interconnectivity between shoreline retreat, ground subsidence, and building collapses. Our results suggest that collapses are correlated with severe coastal erosion driven by sediment imbalances resulting from decades of inefficient landscape management and urban expansion along the city's waterfront. This severe erosion, combined with sea level rise, increases seawater intrusion, raising groundwater levels in coastal aquifers. Degrading ground stability and accelerating corrosion in building foundations ultimately culminating in collapses. We identified a coastal area of high vulnerability with over 7,000 buildings at risk, surpassing any other vulnerable zone in the Mediterranean Basin. We propose cost‐effective and nature‐based techniques for coastal landscape adaptation to alleviate these dangers in Alexandria and other Southern Mediterranean cities facing similar climatic challenges.https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004883coastal erosionsea level riseseawater intrusionbuildings collapsesouthern mediterraneanand adaptive coastal design |
| spellingShingle | Sara S. Fouad Essam Heggy Oula Amrouni Abderraouf Hzami Steffen Nijhuis Nesma Mohamed Ibrahim H. Saleh Seifeddine Jomaa Yasser Elsheshtawy Udo Weilacher Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape Mitigations Earth's Future coastal erosion sea level rise seawater intrusion buildings collapse southern mediterranean and adaptive coastal design |
| title | Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape Mitigations |
| title_full | Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape Mitigations |
| title_fullStr | Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape Mitigations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape Mitigations |
| title_short | Soaring Building Collapses in Southern Mediterranean Coasts: Hydroclimatic Drivers & Adaptive Landscape Mitigations |
| title_sort | soaring building collapses in southern mediterranean coasts hydroclimatic drivers adaptive landscape mitigations |
| topic | coastal erosion sea level rise seawater intrusion buildings collapse southern mediterranean and adaptive coastal design |
| url | https://doi.org/10.1029/2024EF004883 |
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