Synergies of Restoring Red Mangroves: Flood Mitigation, Carbon Sequestration, and Coastal Adaptation

Abstract

Coastal societies are vulnerable to flooding which will increase due to the impacts of climate change. Engineers have started looking at natural features as a tool of coastal adaptation, however current studies do not include the time dependent impacts of their growth on coastal hazard mitigation. In this thesis, a coupled hydrodynamic model and ecological model is developed to estimate the synergistic benefits of wave attenuation and carbon sequestration due to the growth of Red Mangroves. Running the model for the case study of Corozal, Belize, the synergistic benefits are observed for local daily and event wave conditions. An annual biomass accumulation rate of 0.42 Mg/ha-yr was estimated resulting in a 14-23% increase in wave attenuation and 8 Mg/ha of sequestered carbon for daily conditions after 20 years of growth, and a 40-100% increase was observed and 40 Mg/ha of carbon for event conditions after 100 years of growth. Future work is needed in calibration the biomass accumulation model. The results of the coupled model provide a useful tool in coastal adaptation systems and can help to place more value on the use of natural features like mangroves.