Mangroves and Coastal Topography Create Economic "safe Havens" from Tropical Storms

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2021 Jul 29

PMID 34321500

Authors

Jacob P Hochard

Edward B Barbier

Stuart E Hamilton

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Evidence suggests that mangroves protect economic activity in coastal areas. We estimate this protection from mangroves and coastal elevation globally, examining both "direct" and "indirect" exposure events (< 100 km vs. ≥ 100 km distance from a cyclone's "eye", respectively). We find that higher elevation (≥ 50 m) or wide mangroves (≥ 10 m seaward width) alone shelter economic activity from indirect cyclone exposure, whereas protection from direct cyclone exposure occurs only in high elevation communities with wide mangroves. Our results reveal that the majority of these "safe havens" are in upper middle-income countries but provide significant benefits to populations in lower middle-income countries.

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