Table 1.
Representative values of contributions to flooding for various timeframes.
Regional mean, minimum (Min) and maximum (Max) values indicate the significance of the spatial variability in LAC. rSLR: relative Sea-Level Rise; TSL: Total Sea Level.
Table 2.
Scenarios of drivers and timeframes.
rSLR: relative sea-level rise; RCP: Representative Concentration Pathway.
Table 3.
Values of land area covered by the discretization segments for several countries.
Fig 1.
Exposure of population to rSLR scenarios.
(a) Exposure levels for population projected to 2090 and rSLR for RCP4.5 (b) Difference between RCPs (c) Difference in exposure to the RCP4.5 sea levels for population projected in 2090 and reference levels (year 2011).
Fig 2.
Exposure of land surface (upper panels) and Built Capital (lower panels) to rSLR scenarios.
(a) Exposure levels for land inundated by rSLR for RCP4.5 (b) Difference between RCPs for land inundated (c) Exposure levels for built capital inundated by rSLR for RCP4.5 (d) Difference between RCPs for land inundated.
Table 4.
Regional exposure to inundation and flooding for various scenarios.
rSLR: Relative Sea-Level Rise; TSL: Total Sea Level; the TSL100 corresponds to the 100-year event; [2011] refers to present exposure values; [Projected] refers to values projected into the future using population projections for the region.
Table 5.
Exposure in countries most affected from El-Niño sea levels.
Comparison of sea-level rise projections and El Niño 1998 sea levels. The aggregate values correspond to the six countries that have been most affected by El Niño sea levels in the past [26]: Peru, Ecuador, Panama, El Salvador, Costa Rica and Guatemala. [N98]: mean sea level induced by El Niño 1998 event; [rSLR2050]: relative sea-level rise for mid-century; [rSLR2090 RCP4.5]: scenario of relative sea-level rise for the end of the century corresponding to RCP4.5; [rSLR2090 RCP8.5]: scenario of relative sea-level rise for the end of the century corresponding to RCP8.5.
Table 6.
Population exposed under various scenarios for the countries most affected by El Niño sea levels.
All values are expressed in percentages relative to the sea-level rise scenario RCP8.5 at the end of the century and the population size in the year 2011. For the aforementioned scenario, values of population size are provided in brackets for the reference year. [N98]: Sea level associated with El Niño 1998; [rSLR]: projections of relative sea-level rise; [RCP4.5] and [RCP8.5] refer to rSLR projections for the two concentration scenarios. The last column, the ratio of low-lying population, refers to the proportion of the population occupying land at elevations below 1 m with respect to the population occupying land at elevations below 10 m, as calculated at the 2011 population levels, and is used to indicate the susceptibility of low-lying areas within countries.
Fig 3.
Population exposed to El-Niño scenarios.
(a) Sea level induced by the El-Niño-1998 event with population in 2011 (b) Sea level induced by the El-Niño-1998 event at the mid-century, including rSLR (c) Difference of exposure between El-Niño-1998 by the mid-century and the SLR projection for RCP4.5 (d) Difference of exposure between El-Niño-1998 atop the rSLR projection for RCP4.5 and the rSLR projection alone. [N98]: El-Niño-1998 event induced mean sea level; [rSLRyy]: relative sea-level rise for year ‘yy’; [RCP4.5]: scenario of rSLR for the end of the century corresponding to the RCP4.5.
Fig 4.
Flooding exposure from present 100-yr extreme sea level.
(a) Population; (b) land surface and (c) built capital at 2011 reference values.
Table 7.
Flooding risk for populations expressed in terms of annual expected risk.
rSLR and TSL denote sea-level rise and potential flooding levels, respectively. [1/100] refers to the probability of occurrence of the 100-year extreme sea level in 2011 as a reference (present); [T(2050)] denotes the return period associated with the 100-year 2011 sea level calculated in year 2050 from the extrapolated long-term changes in the extremes from the historical record (1950–2008); [RCP4.5] and [RCP8.5] refer to the two sea level rise projections by the end of the century. Percentage values are expressed with respect to the 100-year event in the reference year, 2011.
Fig 5.
Exposure of population and built capital to future rSLR and present 100-yr extreme sea level.
(a) Population exposed to RCP8.5 rSLR and present 100-yr extreme sea level; (b) difference of exposed population between RCPs (c) Built capital exposed to RCP8.5 rSLR and present 100-yr extreme sea level; (d) difference of built capital exposed between RCPs.