Coastal Vulnerability Impact Assessment under Climate Change in the Arctic Coasts of Tromsø, Norway

Arctic coastlines are the most vulnerable regions of the Earth, and local communities in those areas are being affected by rising sea levels and temperature. Therefore, Earth Observation combined with up-to-date geoinformation tools offers a dependable, cost-effective, and time-efficient approach to understanding the socioeconomic impact of climate changes in Arctic coastal areas. A promising approach is the Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI), which takes into account different factors such as geomorphology, sea factors, and shoreline retreat or advance, to estimate the grade of vulnerability of a coastal area. Notwithstanding its potential, its application in the Arctic is still challenging. This study targets to estimate CVI to value the vulnerability of the coastal areas of Norway located in the Arctic. For the application of CVI and specifically for geomorphological and sea factors, data were acquired from international and national institutes. After the collection of all the necessary parameters for CVI was completed, all datasets were imported into a GIS software program (ArcGIS Pro) where the vulnerability classes of CVI were estimated. The results show that most of the coast of Northern Norway is characterized by a low to high degree of vulnerability, while in the island of Tromsø the vulnerability is mainly high and very high.