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The Effectiveness, Costs and Coastal Protection Benefits of Natural and Nature-Based Defences

There is great interest in the restoration and conservation of coastal habitats for protection from flooding and erosion. This is evidenced by the growing number of analyses and reviews of the effectiveness of habitats as natural defences and increasing funding world-wide for nature-based defences–i...

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Autores principales: Narayan, Siddharth, Beck, Michael W., Reguero, Borja G., Losada, Iñigo J., van Wesenbeeck, Bregje, Pontee, Nigel, Sanchirico, James N., Ingram, Jane Carter, Lange, Glenn-Marie, Burks-Copes, Kelly A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4852949/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27135247
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154735
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author Narayan, Siddharth
Beck, Michael W.
Reguero, Borja G.
Losada, Iñigo J.
van Wesenbeeck, Bregje
Pontee, Nigel
Sanchirico, James N.
Ingram, Jane Carter
Lange, Glenn-Marie
Burks-Copes, Kelly A.
author_facet Narayan, Siddharth
Beck, Michael W.
Reguero, Borja G.
Losada, Iñigo J.
van Wesenbeeck, Bregje
Pontee, Nigel
Sanchirico, James N.
Ingram, Jane Carter
Lange, Glenn-Marie
Burks-Copes, Kelly A.
author_sort Narayan, Siddharth
collection PubMed
description There is great interest in the restoration and conservation of coastal habitats for protection from flooding and erosion. This is evidenced by the growing number of analyses and reviews of the effectiveness of habitats as natural defences and increasing funding world-wide for nature-based defences–i.e. restoration projects aimed at coastal protection; yet, there is no synthetic information on what kinds of projects are effective and cost effective for this purpose. This paper addresses two issues critical for designing restoration projects for coastal protection: (i) a synthesis of the costs and benefits of projects designed for coastal protection (nature-based defences) and (ii) analyses of the effectiveness of coastal habitats (natural defences) in reducing wave heights and the biophysical parameters that influence this effectiveness. We (i) analyse data from sixty-nine field measurements in coastal habitats globally and examine measures of effectiveness of mangroves, salt-marshes, coral reefs and seagrass/kelp beds for wave height reduction; (ii) synthesise the costs and coastal protection benefits of fifty-two nature-based defence projects and; (iii) estimate the benefits of each restoration project by combining information on restoration costs with data from nearby field measurements. The analyses of field measurements show that coastal habitats have significant potential for reducing wave heights that varies by habitat and site. In general, coral reefs and salt-marshes have the highest overall potential. Habitat effectiveness is influenced by: a) the ratios of wave height-to-water depth and habitat width-to-wavelength in coral reefs; and b) the ratio of vegetation height-to-water depth in salt-marshes. The comparison of costs of nature-based defence projects and engineering structures show that salt-marshes and mangroves can be two to five times cheaper than a submerged breakwater for wave heights up to half a metre and, within their limits, become more cost effective at greater depths. Nature-based defence projects also report benefits ranging from reductions in storm damage to reductions in coastal structure costs.
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spelling pubmed-48529492016-05-13 The Effectiveness, Costs and Coastal Protection Benefits of Natural and Nature-Based Defences Narayan, Siddharth Beck, Michael W. Reguero, Borja G. Losada, Iñigo J. van Wesenbeeck, Bregje Pontee, Nigel Sanchirico, James N. Ingram, Jane Carter Lange, Glenn-Marie Burks-Copes, Kelly A. PLoS One Research Article There is great interest in the restoration and conservation of coastal habitats for protection from flooding and erosion. This is evidenced by the growing number of analyses and reviews of the effectiveness of habitats as natural defences and increasing funding world-wide for nature-based defences–i.e. restoration projects aimed at coastal protection; yet, there is no synthetic information on what kinds of projects are effective and cost effective for this purpose. This paper addresses two issues critical for designing restoration projects for coastal protection: (i) a synthesis of the costs and benefits of projects designed for coastal protection (nature-based defences) and (ii) analyses of the effectiveness of coastal habitats (natural defences) in reducing wave heights and the biophysical parameters that influence this effectiveness. We (i) analyse data from sixty-nine field measurements in coastal habitats globally and examine measures of effectiveness of mangroves, salt-marshes, coral reefs and seagrass/kelp beds for wave height reduction; (ii) synthesise the costs and coastal protection benefits of fifty-two nature-based defence projects and; (iii) estimate the benefits of each restoration project by combining information on restoration costs with data from nearby field measurements. The analyses of field measurements show that coastal habitats have significant potential for reducing wave heights that varies by habitat and site. In general, coral reefs and salt-marshes have the highest overall potential. Habitat effectiveness is influenced by: a) the ratios of wave height-to-water depth and habitat width-to-wavelength in coral reefs; and b) the ratio of vegetation height-to-water depth in salt-marshes. The comparison of costs of nature-based defence projects and engineering structures show that salt-marshes and mangroves can be two to five times cheaper than a submerged breakwater for wave heights up to half a metre and, within their limits, become more cost effective at greater depths. Nature-based defence projects also report benefits ranging from reductions in storm damage to reductions in coastal structure costs. Public Library of Science 2016-05-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4852949/ /pubmed/27135247 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154735 Text en https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) public domain dedication.
spellingShingle Research Article
Narayan, Siddharth
Beck, Michael W.
Reguero, Borja G.
Losada, Iñigo J.
van Wesenbeeck, Bregje
Pontee, Nigel
Sanchirico, James N.
Ingram, Jane Carter
Lange, Glenn-Marie
Burks-Copes, Kelly A.
The Effectiveness, Costs and Coastal Protection Benefits of Natural and Nature-Based Defences
title The Effectiveness, Costs and Coastal Protection Benefits of Natural and Nature-Based Defences
title_full The Effectiveness, Costs and Coastal Protection Benefits of Natural and Nature-Based Defences
title_fullStr The Effectiveness, Costs and Coastal Protection Benefits of Natural and Nature-Based Defences
title_full_unstemmed The Effectiveness, Costs and Coastal Protection Benefits of Natural and Nature-Based Defences
title_short The Effectiveness, Costs and Coastal Protection Benefits of Natural and Nature-Based Defences
title_sort effectiveness, costs and coastal protection benefits of natural and nature-based defences
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4852949/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27135247
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0154735
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