The Arctic region, one of the most vulnerable areas globally, faces severe climate change impacts, with rising sea levels and temperatures threatening local communities. Modern geoinformation tools provide a reliable, cost-efficient, and time-saving method for assessing these climate changes in Arctic coastal regions. This study focuses on Finland’s Arctic and sub-Arctic diverse coastline. The Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) is used to assess the vulnerability of Finland’s coastlines, using advanced geoinformatics tools. Integrating high-resolution data from EMODnet, the National Land Survey of Finland Digital Elevation Model (DEM), and physical sources, the CVI includes six input parameters: geomorphology, coastal slope, shoreline change rates, mean wave height, tidal range, and relative sea-level change. The CVI results reveal pronounced spatial variability: 37% of the coastline is classified with very low vulnerability, primarily in the southern Gulf of Finland, and some northern segments, specifically part of Lapland, exhibit minimal susceptibility to coastal hazards. Conversely, the central Gulf of Bothnia shows high vulnerability (29%), with low and moderate vulnerability zones comprising 27% and 6%, respectively, and very high vulnerability at 1%. This assessment provides essential insights for sustainable coastal management in Finland by offering a replicable model for Arctic coastal assessments. This study supports policymakers and local communities in developing targeted adaptation strategies to enhance resilience against climate-driven coastal hazards.

Intensifying climate change impacts, such as Sea-Level Rise (SLR), floods, extreme weather events and coastal erosion, threaten ecosystems, infrastructure, and human communities at a global scale, making vulnerability assessments a crucial prerequisite for identifying areas necessitating urgent and effective actions. The Coastal Vulnerability Index (CVI) is a widely used index-based methodology for such assessments; yet its implementation often relies on complex, manual workflows across multiple proprietary desktop Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. Existing approaches limit accessibility, lack transparency, hinder reproducibility, and are frequently time-consuming. To address these challenges, CVIc (Coastal Vulnerability Index Compiler) is presented herein as a novel, open-source, and open-access geoprocessing web application for the computation of the CVI. CVIc provides an end-to-end dynamic workflow, guiding users from shoreline data import to the application of various standardized indices (CVI, ICVI). CVIc is deployed as a website (https://alexandrosliaskos.github.io/CVIc/) and features interactive tools for shoreline digitization, segmentation, parameter value assignment, and visualization and export of results. The only input requirements are a shoreline Shapefile input or a GeoTIFF image for digitization, and the knowledge of the spatial distribution of the parameter values for the area under study. By leveraging IndexedDB for browser-based data storage, CVIc operates without server-side dependencies, ensuring data privacy, protection and large-scale dataset processing. To our knowledge, this consists the first web solution of its kind, as its streamlined approach into a unified and user-friendly platform makes this type of analysis more feasible to researchers and coastal practitioners, while providing policymakers with more accessible and robust data for decision-making. Its open-source nature enables community-driven advancements, and the simple User Interface (UI) and map components mark it as appropriate for educational purposes.

It is often inferred that rising sea levels will result in widespread coastal recession. Erosion appeared prevalent in a worldwide compilation of evidence derived from maps and aerial photographs undertaken in the 1980s by the Commission on the Coastal Environment. Eric Bird, chair of the commission, inferred that >70% of sandy coastlines had retreated, a generalisation that has been widely cited. We reconsider these findings in respect of subsequent advances in shoreline mapping, including greater precision possible using geographical information systems and more frequent remote sensing imagery with increased spatial, spectral and temporal resolution. Satellite-derived shorelines now enable broad global and regional generalisations about shoreline position. Beaches fluctuate over a range of timescales, meaning that trends in their position are highly dependent on techniques and temporal scales adopted for monitoring. Recent global- and regional-scale shoreline assessments indicate that many sandy shorelines have been stable, and that detectable retreat has occurred on fewer beaches than previously inferred. Accretion is apparent on some coasts, particularly where engineering interventions protect or have reclaimed land. There is considerable variability in the behaviour of monitored beaches, and it is not yet possible to decipher a response to the gradual centimetre-scale rise in sea level of recent decades. Instead, we re-emphasise the several other factors that were considered to contribute to recession by the Commission, many of which relate to a change in sediment budget. To provide insights into future coastline behaviour, a better understanding of the multiple drivers on individual beaches is needed to discriminate between erosional events and longer-term trends in shoreline position.