Under future climate predictions the incidence of coastal flooding is set to rise. Many coastal regions at risk, such as those surrounding the North Sea, comprise large areas of low-lying and productive agricultural land. Flood risk assessments typically emphasise the economic consequences of coastal flooding on urban areas and national infrastructure. Impacts on agricultural land have seen less attention, and considerations tend to omit the long term effects of soil salinity. The aim of this study is to develop a universal framework to evaluate the economic impact of coastal flooding to agriculture. We incorporated existing flood models, satellite acquired crop data, soil salinity and crop sensitivity to give a novel and detailed assessment of salt damage to agricultural productivity over time. We focussed our case study on low-lying, highly productive agricultural land with a history of flooding in Lincolnshire, UK. The potential impact of agricultural flood damage varied across our study region.Assuming typical cropping does not change post-flood, financial losses range from £1,366/ha to £5,526/ha per inundation; these losses would be reduced by between 35% up to 85% in the likely event that an alternative, more salt-tolerant, cropping, regime is implemented post-flood. These losses are substantially higher than loses calculated on the same areas using established flood risk assessment framework conventionally used for freshwater flood assessments, with differences attributed to our longer term salt damage projections impacting over several years. This suggests flood protection policy needs to consider local and long terms impacts of flooding on agricultural land.

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沿海洪水对农业的影响：英国林肯郡的案例研究

根据未来的气候预测，沿海洪水的发生率将会上升。许多面临风险的沿海地区，例如北海周边地区，都包括大片低洼和高产农业用地。洪水风险评估通常强调沿海洪水对城市地区和国家基础设施的经济影响。对农业用地的影响较少受到关注，考虑因素往往忽略了土壤盐分的长期影响。本研究的目的是制定一个通用框架来评估沿海洪水对农业的经济影响。我们结合了现有的洪水模型、卫星获取的作物数据、土壤盐度和作物敏感性，对盐分对农业生产力的长期破坏进行了新颖而详细的评估。我们将案例研究集中在低洼地区，英国林肯郡曾发生过洪水的高产农业用地。农业洪水破坏的潜在影响在我们的研究区域各不相同。假设典型的耕作在洪水后没有改变，每次洪水造成的经济损失从 1,366 英镑/公顷到 5,526 英镑/公顷不等；如果在洪水后实施替代的、更耐盐的种植制度，这些损失将减少 35% 至 85%。这些损失远高于使用通常用于淡水洪水评估的既定洪水风险评估框架在同一地区计算的损失，差异归因于我们的长期盐害预测影响了几年。这表明防洪政策需要考虑洪水对农业用地的局部和长期影响。