Comment:

Optional. If the region of interest is large enough, some parts of the coastline may be exposed to more or less sea level rise (SLR), both in terms of the rate of rise or fall and the net amount of rise or fall that has been observed over time is expected in the future. Spatial variation in SLR is an optional parameter in the Coastal Vulnerability model. To include this variable in the exposure index calculation, the model takes a point vector with an attribute field containing a relevant SLR metric (rate, net rise, or any other variable that may be relevant to coastal inundation). The SLR values are joined to the shore points by taking a weighted average of the values at the two nearest SLR points, for each shore point. The weights are the inverted distances from shore point to SLR point. The model computes the sea level change index at each shoreline point ranking from very low exposure (rank=1 for the 0-20 percentile) to very high exposure (rank=5 for the 81-100 percentile).