Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
Where humans have the money, we sometimes build storm defenses like seawalls to protect our coastal cities. But coastal development can often destroy natural defenses like coastal marshes or mangrove swamps. These ecosystems dampen waves and reduce storm surge flooding, and mangroves can even reduce wind speeds.
The protections provided by coastal ecosystem services are typically estimated by carefully looking at a single area or event. A new study led by East Carolina University's Jacob Hochard took another tack, comparing the economic impacts of tropical cyclones around the world with satellite data.
[...] Measuring economic activity requires a little more ingenuity, as you can't just look at reported statistics for many of these countries. Fortunately, the intensity of nighttime lighting in any location is easily determined from space and has been shown to be a reliable indicator of economic activity. Basically, if an area is doing well economically, there will be more lights on at night there.
To find out how well mangrove swamps protect nearby communities, the researchers measured the change in lighting for the years after a tropical cyclone made landfall. They compared communities with the average mangrove extent and above-average communities at the 68th percentile (one standard deviation above the mean). Instead of about 6 meters of mangrove buffer, these communities had about 25 meters of mangrove.
[...] The researchers made sure that they weren't mistaking causation for mere correlation—like the economic recovery after a storm involving more clearing of mangroves if the economic damage was greater. But an interesting possibility they couldn't evaluate is that the presence of more extensive mangroves might make recovery seem like a safer investment. It could be that given the choice between a community that seems unprotected from future storms and one that has a good mangrove buffer, more post-disaster money might flow into the latter—a case of "perception is reality" on top of the physical reality of storm waves coming through the trees.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @02:21PM
Make dampening wall, and make the nature pay for it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday June 08 2019, @03:40PM (1 child)
Something often missed about swamps, is they're crappy places to live, so any economic activity at all is DESPITE the swamp not because of the swamp. There's an amazing oil refinery next door, or whatever excuse could exist.
So naturally, a boom town that is unfortunately near a swamp will boom. The swamp is, if anything, holding the area back.
Its kinda like urbanism... Don't confuse a nice urban university being surrounded by parks full heroin addicted homeless with a theoretical model where the more famous the uni the more heroin so heroin must cause a great educational experience and therefore all cities should expand heroin use.
You could interpret the swamp results as economic activity is not held back by swamps. Swamps do have some beneficial effects WRT stuff that doesn't matter economically like water flow, but there's no logical explanation for why smelly mosquito infested wasteland results in economic activity. Mosquito bug spraying companies, perhaps at a minimal level.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @05:18PM
> Something often missed about swamps, is they're crappy places to live,
Well, I went out of my way to miss our local swamp. When I bought my house, I specifically bought one that was not built on top of landfill over areas that were historically swampy. The town has a map showing where building permits were granted for basement/foundation repairs, and the hot spots line up with the old swamp.
But they are nice places to visit (except for mosquito season), with lots of interesting plants and animals. Parts of our local swamp have been turned into nature preserve with a boardwalk to get into the area without getting muddy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 08 2019, @05:25PM
maybe the swamp in tropical holiday area is ... less touristy; the economy thus more genuine.
as for the non-swamp and no mangrove tropical holiday area, well everythings broken now and the tourist won't come ...
thus the "eco"nomy is in tatters until all tourist lures are fixed?