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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...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2016
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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. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4852949 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2016 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
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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