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An obvious increase of extreme weather events such as heatwaves, floods and tropical storms during the last decades has given raise to worldwide concerns and indicates most likely the potential impacts of a global warming in the future. Besides these temporarily restricted events other impacts which emerge only gradually, such as rising sea levels are at least as serious.

Due to the high concentration of natural and socio-economic values located especially around coastal zones, rising sea levels raise significant concern. More than 1.2 billion people, representing 23 percent of the world’s population live on coastal plains at densities about three times higher than the global mean. (1)