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Damages caused by hurricane Irma in the human-degraded mangroves of Saint Martin (Caribbean)

In early September 2017, Irma was the most powerful hurricane that struck the northern Caribbean over the last 100 years. In the 21(st) century, the stronger types of tropical cyclones will likely increase in frequency due to the climate change and internal climate variability. Lessons to anticipate...

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Autores principales: Walcker, R., Laplanche, C., Herteman, M., Lambs, L., Fromard, F.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6908650/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31831827
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55393-3
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author Walcker, R.
Laplanche, C.
Herteman, M.
Lambs, L.
Fromard, F.
author_facet Walcker, R.
Laplanche, C.
Herteman, M.
Lambs, L.
Fromard, F.
author_sort Walcker, R.
collection PubMed
description In early September 2017, Irma was the most powerful hurricane that struck the northern Caribbean over the last 100 years. In the 21(st) century, the stronger types of tropical cyclones will likely increase in frequency due to the climate change and internal climate variability. Lessons to anticipate the response of mangroves to this intensification can be learned from this extreme event. Here, we analysed damages caused in mangrove forests of the Saint Martin Island. Mangroves of this island were previously degraded due to historic human pressures and recent over-urbanisation. Forest inventories and time series of very high resolution satellite images revealed that approximately 80% of the mangrove area was damaged by the hurricane. Results highlighted distinct rates of forest recovery. Early and rapid recoveries were largely observed in most study sites. However, some mangroves were still unable to recover fourteen months after the disturbance. The human-induced degradation of the ecosystem prior to the hurricane is hypothesised to be the main factor controlling the absence of forest recovery. We suggest that human-degraded mangroves will be weakened in the face of such extreme events. We advocate to preserve and restore mangroves in order to guarantee all the valuable ecosystem services they provided.
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spelling pubmed-69086502019-12-16 Damages caused by hurricane Irma in the human-degraded mangroves of Saint Martin (Caribbean) Walcker, R. Laplanche, C. Herteman, M. Lambs, L. Fromard, F. Sci Rep Article In early September 2017, Irma was the most powerful hurricane that struck the northern Caribbean over the last 100 years. In the 21(st) century, the stronger types of tropical cyclones will likely increase in frequency due to the climate change and internal climate variability. Lessons to anticipate the response of mangroves to this intensification can be learned from this extreme event. Here, we analysed damages caused in mangrove forests of the Saint Martin Island. Mangroves of this island were previously degraded due to historic human pressures and recent over-urbanisation. Forest inventories and time series of very high resolution satellite images revealed that approximately 80% of the mangrove area was damaged by the hurricane. Results highlighted distinct rates of forest recovery. Early and rapid recoveries were largely observed in most study sites. However, some mangroves were still unable to recover fourteen months after the disturbance. The human-induced degradation of the ecosystem prior to the hurricane is hypothesised to be the main factor controlling the absence of forest recovery. We suggest that human-degraded mangroves will be weakened in the face of such extreme events. We advocate to preserve and restore mangroves in order to guarantee all the valuable ecosystem services they provided. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-12-12 /pmc/articles/PMC6908650/ /pubmed/31831827 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55393-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Walcker, R.
Laplanche, C.
Herteman, M.
Lambs, L.
Fromard, F.
Damages caused by hurricane Irma in the human-degraded mangroves of Saint Martin (Caribbean)
title Damages caused by hurricane Irma in the human-degraded mangroves of Saint Martin (Caribbean)
title_full Damages caused by hurricane Irma in the human-degraded mangroves of Saint Martin (Caribbean)
title_fullStr Damages caused by hurricane Irma in the human-degraded mangroves of Saint Martin (Caribbean)
title_full_unstemmed Damages caused by hurricane Irma in the human-degraded mangroves of Saint Martin (Caribbean)
title_short Damages caused by hurricane Irma in the human-degraded mangroves of Saint Martin (Caribbean)
title_sort damages caused by hurricane irma in the human-degraded mangroves of saint martin (caribbean)
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6908650/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31831827
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-55393-3
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