Scalable Interactive Platform for Geographic Evaluation of Sea-Level Rise Impact Combining High-Performance Computing and WebGIS Client

Abstract

As the climate is changing, more applied information on resulting impacts are required to inform adaptation planning. Over the last decade, the amount of information relevant to climate change impact assessment has grown drastically. This can particularly be illustrated in coastal areas, threatened by sea-level rise due to climate change, where a key recent development has been the delivery of precise and accurate topography obtained by Light Detection and Ranging (Li-DAR) at regional and national scales, i.e., respectively, large and small scales. However, using such large, complex, and heterogeneous coastal data sets in a contextual manner is far from straightforward. It is the reason why these developments have not led to easier assessment of coastal climate change impacts so far. In this chapter, we address this interoperability challenge by developing and describing a prototype of Web service combining Li-DAR, tidal, and sea-level rise data to quickly communicate spatial information on the exposure to future coastal flooding along the French coastal zones. We discuss several issues related to data architecture, on-the-fly (geo)-processing capabilities, management of asynchronous workflows, and data diffusion strategies in the context of international standards such as Infrastructure for Spatial Information in Europe (INSPIRE). We believe that our flexible architecture mainly reusing off-the-shelf components is able to improve both complex scenarios’ analysis for experts and dissemination of these future coastal changes to the general public.