Coastlines are fundamental to humans for habitation, commerce, and natural resources. Many coastal ecosystem disasters, caused by extreme sea surface temperature (SST), were reported when the global climate shifted from global warming to global surface warming hiatus after 1998. The task of understanding the coastal SST variations within the global context is an urgent matter. Our study on the ...

Over the last century, northeast Pacific coastal sea surface temperatures (SSTs) and land-based surface air temperatures (SATs) display multidecadal variations associated with the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, in addition to a warming trend of ∼ 0.5-1 °C. Using independent records of sea-level pressure (SLP), SST, and SAT, this study investigates northeast (NE) Pacific coupled atmosphere-ocean v...

During the past f ive decades, natural hazards such as f loods, earthquakes, severe storms and tropical cyclones, droughts, wild land f ires, and also manmade disasters such as Nuclear disaster, oil spills, and terrorist attacks have caused major loss of human lives and livelihoods, the destruction of economic and social infrastructure, as well as environmental damages. Disaster reduction is bo...

Hospitals play a central role in disasters by receiving an influx of casualties and coordinating medical efforts to manage resources. However, plans have not been fully developed in the event the hospital itself is severely damaged, either from natural disasters like earthquakes or tornados or manmade events such as a massive electrical failure or terrorist attacks. Of particular concern is the...

We have developed a new coastal database for the Mediterranean basin that is intended for coastal impact and adaptation assessment to sea-level rise and associated hazards on a regional scale. The data structure of the database relies on a linear representation of the coast with associated spatial assessment units. Using information on coastal morphology, human settlements and administrative bo...

Just like any other ecosystem, coastal and estuarine ecosystems are complex and dynamic in terms of their species structure and functioning. The resilience of the different types of coastal ecosystem to change depends on the structural complexity of the different trophic relationships within the local food web, the connectivity between habitats and larger (eco)system units, and the ecological a...

Surrounded by the ocean, Taiwan has been increasingly developing coastal tourism projects. Concerns that negative impacts might be brought about by prosperous tourism have resulted in a recent focus on sustainable tourism. Sustainable tourism involves policies that acknowledge the interdependences among the environment, the community, and the economy. The goal of sustainable tourism is to enhan...

The objective of this study is to survey natural resources and to assess environmental changes induced by human activities (industrial, socio-economic, and recreational) and the associated impacts on Manifah and Tanagib coastal zones in eastern Saudi Arabia. A review of the relevant literature was carried out at both the local and regional levels, in order to define the characteristics of the c...