Coastal Vulnerability Assessment in Son Tra – Cua Dai region

Abstract

The coastal erosion due to storm surge and unsustainable urban development in the central region of Vietnam has become increasingly in the last decade. It requires accurate coastal vulnerability assessments (CVI). The aim of this study is to propose (1) a new approach to classify the coasts and (2) the selection of appropriate criteria to assess the CVI index at the regional scale. Accordingly, the study has calculated the CVI index for the coastal area of Son Tra - Cua Dai region based on 5 coastal characteristic variables, 3 coastal dynamics and 4 socio-economic variables. The results show that more than 15% of the coastline of the study area has very high CVI values, especially in the coastal area of Hoi An. The coastal landscape with residential and tourist sites near beaches without protection forests has been strongly affected by storm erosion.