Urban extent in low-lying coastal areas is increasing faster than in the hinterland, thus leading to increased exposure to sea-level rise and associated hazards. Societies' risk to future coastal flooding will, therefore, not only depend on the physical drivers of change but also on the rate and pattern of urban growth. Researchers at Kiel University (CAU), together with partners from Berlin and Athens, have now developed a new set of spatially explicit projections of urban extent for ten countries in the Mediterranean, with a high spatial and temporal resolution. These future urban projections indicate that accounting for the spatial patterns of urban development can lead to significant differences in the assessment of future coastal urban exposure. Depending on the urban development scenario chosen, the exposure of certain coastal regions can vary by up to 104 percent until 2100. These results have recently been published in the international journal Scientific Reports.