How Sea Level Rise May Hit You Through the Backdoor: Changing Extreme Water Levels in Shallow Coastal Lagoons

Abstract

Due to their choked geometry, coastal lagoons can attenuate extreme water levels compared to the open sea. However, this protective property is expected to decrease due to sea-level rise. By studying idealized lagoons in a non-dimensional parameter space, this study describes non-linear interactions between tides, storm surges, freshwater fluxes into the lagoon, and sea-level rise. The non-dimensional numbers include lagoon geometry and forcing scales. The main objective is to provide an overview of potentially affected lagoons and to highlight the importance of attenuation changes due to sea-level rise. Tidal and storm surge induced maximum water levels inside lagoons rise faster than sea-level rise for most of the parameter space. Maximum water levels due to freshwater fluxes rise slower than sea-level rise for strongly choked lagoons. For compound events, the response between rising faster or slower than sea-level rise depends strongly on the lagoon geometry.