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Cutting the costs of coastal protection by integrating vegetation in flood defences

Exposure to coastal flooding is increasing due to growing population and economic activity. These developments go hand-in-hand with a loss and deterioration of ecosystems. Ironically, these ecosystems can play a buffering role in reducing flood hazard. The ability of ecosystems to contribute to redu...

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Autores principales: van Zelst, Vincent T. M., Dijkstra, Jasper T., van Wesenbeeck, Bregje K., Eilander, Dirk, Morris, Edward P., Winsemius, Hessel C., Ward, Philip J., de Vries, Mindert B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8586143/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34764288
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26887-4
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author van Zelst, Vincent T. M.
Dijkstra, Jasper T.
van Wesenbeeck, Bregje K.
Eilander, Dirk
Morris, Edward P.
Winsemius, Hessel C.
Ward, Philip J.
de Vries, Mindert B.
author_facet van Zelst, Vincent T. M.
Dijkstra, Jasper T.
van Wesenbeeck, Bregje K.
Eilander, Dirk
Morris, Edward P.
Winsemius, Hessel C.
Ward, Philip J.
de Vries, Mindert B.
author_sort van Zelst, Vincent T. M.
collection PubMed
description Exposure to coastal flooding is increasing due to growing population and economic activity. These developments go hand-in-hand with a loss and deterioration of ecosystems. Ironically, these ecosystems can play a buffering role in reducing flood hazard. The ability of ecosystems to contribute to reducing coastal flooding has been emphasized in multiple studies. However, the role of ecosystems in hybrid coastal protection (i.e. a combination of ecosystems and levees) has been poorly quantified at a global scale. Here, we evaluate the use of coastal vegetation, mangroves, and marshes fronting levees to reduce global coastal protection costs, by accounting for wave-vegetation interaction.The research is carried out by combining earth observation data and hydrodynamic modelling. We show that incooperating vegetation in hybrid coastal protection results in more sustainable and financially attractive coastal protection strategies. If vegetated foreshore levee systems were established along populated coastlines susceptible to flooding, the required levee crest height could be considerably reduced. This would result in a reduction of 320 (range: 107-961) billion USD(2005) Power Purchasing Parity (PPP) in investments, of which 67.5 (range: 22.5- 202) billion USD(2005) PPP in urban areas for a 1 in 100-year flood protection level.
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spelling pubmed-85861432021-11-15 Cutting the costs of coastal protection by integrating vegetation in flood defences van Zelst, Vincent T. M. Dijkstra, Jasper T. van Wesenbeeck, Bregje K. Eilander, Dirk Morris, Edward P. Winsemius, Hessel C. Ward, Philip J. de Vries, Mindert B. Nat Commun Article Exposure to coastal flooding is increasing due to growing population and economic activity. These developments go hand-in-hand with a loss and deterioration of ecosystems. Ironically, these ecosystems can play a buffering role in reducing flood hazard. The ability of ecosystems to contribute to reducing coastal flooding has been emphasized in multiple studies. However, the role of ecosystems in hybrid coastal protection (i.e. a combination of ecosystems and levees) has been poorly quantified at a global scale. Here, we evaluate the use of coastal vegetation, mangroves, and marshes fronting levees to reduce global coastal protection costs, by accounting for wave-vegetation interaction.The research is carried out by combining earth observation data and hydrodynamic modelling. We show that incooperating vegetation in hybrid coastal protection results in more sustainable and financially attractive coastal protection strategies. If vegetated foreshore levee systems were established along populated coastlines susceptible to flooding, the required levee crest height could be considerably reduced. This would result in a reduction of 320 (range: 107-961) billion USD(2005) Power Purchasing Parity (PPP) in investments, of which 67.5 (range: 22.5- 202) billion USD(2005) PPP in urban areas for a 1 in 100-year flood protection level. Nature Publishing Group UK 2021-11-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8586143/ /pubmed/34764288 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26887-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Article
van Zelst, Vincent T. M.
Dijkstra, Jasper T.
van Wesenbeeck, Bregje K.
Eilander, Dirk
Morris, Edward P.
Winsemius, Hessel C.
Ward, Philip J.
de Vries, Mindert B.
Cutting the costs of coastal protection by integrating vegetation in flood defences
title Cutting the costs of coastal protection by integrating vegetation in flood defences
title_full Cutting the costs of coastal protection by integrating vegetation in flood defences
title_fullStr Cutting the costs of coastal protection by integrating vegetation in flood defences
title_full_unstemmed Cutting the costs of coastal protection by integrating vegetation in flood defences
title_short Cutting the costs of coastal protection by integrating vegetation in flood defences
title_sort cutting the costs of coastal protection by integrating vegetation in flood defences
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8586143/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34764288
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-26887-4
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