On the strengths and drawbacks of tsunami-buffer forests

A great wave: the Storegga tsunami and the end of Doggerland?

“…Even in a low-drag scenario with conservative wave-energy dissipation, it still predicts the survival of Dogger Island (Hill et al . 2017)—without taking into account the effects of any extant vegetation cover (for a discussion of the arboreal effects on dissipation and inundation, see Cochard 2011).…”

Resolution vs. image quality in pre-tsunami imagery used for tsunami impact models in Aceh, Indonesia

“…Additional to early warning systems, sustainable mitigation and coastal development plans that encompass local communities and their livelihood must be prioritized. As often mentioned by several authors (Laso Bayas et al, 2011;Ziegler et al, 2009;Pomeroy et al, 2006;Cochard, 2011) such planning must consider local needs and customs to obtain not only a more sustainable protection against tsunami events but also tangible benefits for the local populations depending on coastal vegetation in the short and midterm. Nevertheless, if high quality, higher spatial resolution imagery as well as resources for processing it and producing models from it are available, then it should indeed be tested since it could provide more accurate description of land cover functions during a tsunami event.…”

Estuarine and Coastal Ecosystems as Defense Against Flood Damages: An Economic Perspective

“…Bathymetric effects, such as from sediment trapping and sedimentation that cause shorelines to become higher, are additionally important factors for the wave attenuation function of marshes (Koch et al, 2009;Loder et al, 2009;Wamsley et al, 2010;Rupprecht et al, 2017;Armitage et al, 2019). Sea-toland shoreline elevation also contributes to the wave attenuation function provided by coastal landscapes populated by mangroves (Alongi, 2008;Cochard, 2011;Laso-Bayas et al, 2011;Armitage et al, 2019). For example, Alongi (2008) suggests that the extent to which mangroves offer protection against catastrophic natural disasters, such as tsunamis, may depend on a range of structural features and conditions within the mangrove ecosystem, such as width of forest, slope of forest floor, forest density, tree diameter and height, proportion of above-ground biomass in the roots, soil texture and forest location (open coast vs. lagoon).…”

“…Similarly, assessments of how well-mangroves and other coastal forests offered protection against the damages and casualties caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami found that important landscape and spatial characteristics, such as the variations in coastal topography, shoreline slope, distance of villages to shore and other coastal features, were important factors influences on protection (Cochard, 2011). For example, Laso-Bayas et al 2011found that the presence of coastal vegetation significantly reduced the casualties caused by the tsunami in Acheh, Indonesia, and the most important factor in determining casualties and infrastructure damage was the distance of villages from the coast.…”