A database of fatal coastal cliff failures

Reiss, Malia N.; Young, Adam P.; Carilli, Jessica

doi:10.5194/nhess-26-3707-2026

Articles | Volume 26, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-3707-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-3707-2026

© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 8

Research article

|

10 Aug 2026

Research article |

| 10 Aug 2026

A database of fatal coastal cliff failures

Malia N. Reiss, Adam P. Young, and Jessica Carilli

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-26-3707-2026-supplement

Data sets

Shapefile of European countries Kristian Sevdari and Drin Marmullaku https://doi.org/10.11583/DTU.23686383.v1

CA Geographic Boundaries -- California Open Data California Open Data Portal https://data.ca.gov/dataset/ca-geographic-boundaries

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Short summary

Globally, coastal cliffs can pose fatal hazards. We present a global fatal coastal cliff failure database, with 114 fatal events and 292 related fatalities from 1927 to 2024. Using this database, we found that deaths from coastal cliff failures are partly associated with elevated rainfall and partly associated with dry periods with elevated human beach activity. These results can help inform beach hazard management.