| Title | A revised coastal sensitivity index for Canada's marine coasts calculated using nonparametric statistics |
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| Author | Hatcher, S V; Manson, G K |
| Source | Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences vol. 59, issue 11, 2021 p. 803-811, https://doi.org/10.1139/cjes-2021-0010  Open Access |
| Image |  |
| Year | 2021 |
| Alt Series | Natural Resources Canada, Contribution Series 20210067 |
| Publisher | Canadian Science Publishing |
| Document | serial |
| Lang. | English |
| Media | on-line; digital |
| File format | pdf |
| Province | Canada; Canada; British Columbia; Alberta; Saskatchewan; Manitoba; Ontario; Quebec; New Brunswick; Nova Scotia; Prince Edward Island; Newfoundland and Labrador; Northwest Territories; Yukon;
Nunavut |
| NTS | 1; 2; 3; 10; 11; 12; 13; 14; 15; 16; 20; 21; 22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 28; 29; 30; 31; 32; 33; 34; 35; 36; 37; 38; 39; 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47; 48; 49; 52; 53; 54; 55; 56; 57; 58; 59; 62; 63; 64; 65;
66; 67; 68; 69; 72; 73; 74; 75; 76; 77; 78; 79; 82; 83; 84; 85; 86; 87; 88; 89; 92; 93; 94; 95; 96; 97; 98; 99; 102; 103; 104; 105; 106; 107; 114O; 114P; 115; 116; 117; 120; 340; 560 |
| Lat/Long WENS | -141.0000 -50.0000 90.0000 41.7500 |
| Subjects | environmental geology; marine geology; Nature and Environment; Science and Technology; coastal environment; coastal studies; terrain sensitivity; coastal management; statistics |
| Illustrations | location maps; diagrams; tables; histograms; plots |
| Program | Climate Change Geoscience Coastal Infrastructure |
| Released | 2021 06 30 |
| Abstract | A Coastal Sensitivity Index (CSI) indicates the sensitivity of a coastline to its physical environment, thus providing information useful for coastal management. Traditionally a CSI is calculated as the
mathematical aggregation of coastal sensitivity indicators, which may include factors such as coastal material, relief, and wave energy. The indicators vary depending on study area, but generally are assigned a score ranging from one to five,
indicating increasing sensitivity. These scores are then aggregated using either the square root of the product mean (the ¿classic¿ method), or using the geometric mean. Both of these methods are limited by mathematical assumptions, lack of
comparability, and the need for empirical validation. In this study, an alternative nonparametric method of calculation known as u-statistics is applied to Canada's marine coasts. Providing a mathematically sound method of aggregating ordinal
indicators, u-statistics have a number of theoretical advantages over the classic and geometric mean methods. In practice, when applied to Canada¿s marine coast, we find that the u-statistics method (1) compresses mid-range variability in
sensitivity, (2) accentuates positive and negative distribution tails, and (3) minimizes propagated error by 190% and 50%, compared to the classic and geometric mean methods, respectively. Additionally, the u-statistics method has a theoretical
foundation, which relieves the necessity for empirical validation of the aggregating assumptions and relies only on the assumptions inherent in the scoring method. The u-statistics thus provide a new, rigorous method for the calculation of coastal
sensitivity indices when the underlying variables have ordinal scores. |
| Summary | (Plain Language Summary, not published)
A Coastal Sensitivity Index (CSI) indicates the sensitivity of a coastline to its physical environment and provides information useful for coastal
management. This CSI aggregates the coastal characteristics of sea-level change, wave height change including the effects of sea ice, ground ice in permafrost, coastal material, backshore slope, and tidal range. Each coastal characteristic was
assigned a score ranging from one to five, in order of increasing sensitivity. Using two methods often applied in the existing scientific literature, two indices were calculated. As both of these methods have known limitations, an alternative method
of calculation known as mu-statistics was applied to Canada's marine coasts and compared to the other methods. Providing a mathematically sound method of aggregating ranked indicators, the mu-statistics approach provides a new, rigorous method for
the calculation of coastal sensitivity indices using scored coastal characteristics. |
| GEOSCAN ID | 328318 |
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