Marsh restoration in front of seawalls is an economically justified nature-based solution for coastal protection
Name
s43247-024-01753-5.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1.59 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
19ac39ae21753cc9931e3f110fd06a26
Author(s)
Lee, Ernie IH
Nepf, Heidi
Journal
Communications Earth & Environment
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Citation
Lee, E.I.H., Nepf, H. Marsh restoration in front of seawalls is an economically justified nature-based solution for coastal protection. Commun Earth Environ 5, 605 (2024).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
A marsh-fronted seawall is a hybrid nature-based coastal protection solution because it attenuates wave energy, reduces erosion, and provides ecosystem services. However, we still have a limited understanding of how to quantify the marsh wave attenuation benefits for economic analysis. Here, we incorporate a prediction of wave attenuation that accounts for species-specific morphology and structural stiffness into a 1-D wave model and validate it with field measurements. Our results show that the wave attenuation varies by a factor of two across different vegetation species. Further, we performed a benefit-cost analysis, in which the economic benefits represent the environmental services value and avoided seawall heightening cost that would otherwise be required to deliver the same overtopping rate without vegetation. We applied the model to a real-world, marsh-fronted seawall design at Juniper Cove, Massachusetts. Although the benefit of marsh-fronted seawalls is sensitive to discount rate, they have benefit-cost ratios greater than one, indicating that it is an economically justified nature-based solution. Further, we found that wave attenuation and benefit-cost ratio are more sensitive to water depth than wave height. Our study demonstrates the importance of considering the coastal protection of marshes and economic benefits in one framework.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-024-01753-5
