Wetlands are Infrastructure

Hurricanes and typhoons are a fact of life. Wetlands can help.​

 

 

Saltmarshes and mangrove forests form a barrier between oceans and bays and land. They have a number of properties that help nearby communities that help communities to cope with the effects of large coast storms, which are predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to grow in intensity as global changes continue to manifest. Coastal wetlands have spongy soils, which store excess water and slowly release it back into nearby waterbodies. Furthermore, wetland plants slow the velocity of waves, reducing the intensity of wave damage common with large storms. 

 

Coastal wetlands prime beachfront location make them targets for development, with an estimate 70% of US saltmarshes lost to property expansion. In tropical areas, areas of mangrove forests are being converted to aquaculture farms to grow shrimp commercially. In fact, half of the world's mangroves have been destroyed in the last 50 years, from both farming and development pressure. The function of coastal wetlands are often replaced by sea walls, jetties, and levees, which are expensive to build and maintain, and lack the ancillary benefits of wetlands such as their value for fisheries.