Coral reefs can provide significant coastal protection benefits to people and property. Here we show that the annual expected damages from flooding would double, and costs from frequent storms would triple without reefs. For 100-year storm events, flood damages would increase by 91% to $US 272 billion without reefs. The countries with the most to gain from reef management are Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Mexico, and Cuba; annual expected flood savings exceed $400 M for each of these nations. Sea-level rise will increase flood risk, but substantial impacts could happen from reef loss alone without better near-term management. We provide a global, process-based valuation of an ecosystem service across an entire marine biome at (sub)national levels. These spatially explicit benefits inform critical risk and environmental management decisions, and the expected benefits can be directly considered by governments (e.g., national accounts, recovery plans) and businesses (e.g., insurance). Coral reefs provide significant coastal protection from storms but they have experienced significant losses. Here the authors show that the annual damages from flooding would double globally without reefs and they quantify where reefs provide the most protection to people and property.

/pdf/the-global-flood-protection-savings-provided-by-coral-reefs-36qjayyla3.pdf

The global flood protection savings provided by coral reefs

The role of ecosystems in coastal protection: Adapting to climate change and coastal hazards

Marine plastic debris floating on the ocean surface is a major environmental problem. However, its distribution in the ocean is poorly mapped, and most of the plastic waste estimated to have entered the ocean from land is unaccounted for. Better understanding of how plastic debris is transported from coastal and marine sources is crucial to quantify and close the global inventory of marine plastics, which in turn represents critical information for mitigation or policy strategies. At the same time, plastic is a unique tracer that provides an opportunity to learn more about the physics and dynamics of our ocean across multiple scales, from the Ekman convergence in basin-scale gyres to individual waves in the surfzone. In this review, we comprehensively discuss what is known about the different processes that govern the transport of floating marine plastic debris in both the open ocean and the coastal zones, based on the published literature and referring to insights from neighbouring fields such as oil spill dispersion, marine safety recovery, plankton connectivity, and others. We discuss how measurements of marine plastics (both in situ and in the laboratory), remote sensing, and numerical simulations can elucidate these processes and their interactions across spatio-temporal scales.

/pdf/the-physical-oceanography-of-the-transport-of-floating-32bmq1tv9q.pdf

The physical oceanography of the transport of floating marine debris

A theoretical model is developed for wave heights and set-up in a surf zone. In the time averaged equations of energy and momentum the energy flux, radiation stress and energy dissipation are determined by simple approximations which include the surface roller in the breaker. Comparison with measurements shows good agreement. Also the transitions immediately after breaking are analysed and shown to be in accordance with the above mentioned ideas and results.

/pdf/wave-heights-and-set-up-in-a-surf-zone-39q6lqmhg5.pdf

Wave Heights and Set-up in a Surf Zone

https://oss.deltares.nl/documents/48999/59759/mccall_2010.pdf

Two-dimensional time dependent hurricane overwash and erosion modeling at Santa Rosa Island

https://oss.deltares.nl/documents/48999/59759/Roelvink_2009.pdf

Modelling storm impacts on beaches, dunes and barrier islands

Modeling storm impacts on beaches, dunes and barrier islands

A Boussinesq-type wave driver for a morphodynamical model to predict short-term morphology

: This first annual report describes ongoing development and validation of the XBeach model as part of the MORPHOS project and other activities over the period 1 March 2006-1 March 2007 and provides documentation and user manual for the present version of the model.

XBeach Annual Report and Mode Description. Modeling of Hurricane Impacts

: This interim report describes activities in the second quarter of the second year of the project `Modeling of Hurricane Impacts'. In agreement with the funding agency, the work was carried out over the period August-December 2007. Three main lines of work are described in this report, viz. dissemination of model and results, model improvements and testing.

Jamie Lescinski

Papers

Modelling storm impacts on beaches, dunes and barrier islands

Modeling storm impacts on beaches, dunes and barrier islands

A Boussinesq-type wave driver for a morphodynamical model to predict short-term morphology

XBeach Annual Report and Mode Description. Modeling of Hurricane Impacts

Modeling of Hurricane Impacts