Department of Coastal Studies, Integrated Coastal Programs, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC, USA.
Department of Marine Sciences, Marine Sciences Center, University of Basrah, Basrah, Iraq.
Sci Rep. 2023 Mar 21;13(1):4620. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-31409-x.
Coastal wetlands protect communities during hurricanes by reducing storm surge flooding and damages. Previous studies have quantified surge reduction benefits of wetlands, but there is less understanding of how the combination of wetland loss and coastal development influences the spatial distribution of flood extents and damages. In this study we integrate a high-resolution 2-D hydrodynamic model with land-use/land-cover change analyses to assess the effects of total wetland loss, decadal wetland loss, and coastal development on storm surge damages in Galveston Bay, Texas. We measure storm surge flood extents from Hurricane Ike for three scenarios: (i) 2008 Baseline; (ii) 2008 No Wetlands, and (iii) 2019 "Present-day H. Ike". We find that during Hurricane Ike in 2008, the total loss of coastal wetlands would have increased damages by a net ~ USD $934 million or 12.8% of baseline damages. For the 2019 Present-day H. Ike scenario, we found very few wetlands were lost between 2008 and 2019. If Hurricane Ike had occurred in 2019, damages would have been higher by ~ $2.52 billion or 34.6%, almost entirely due to increased real estate value and new coastal development. Our findings suggest that, while increase in economic exposure is a key driver of storm surge risks in Galveston Bay, effective wetland conservation continues to reduce these risks.
滨海湿地通过减少风暴潮洪灾和损失来保护社区。先前的研究已经量化了湿地减少风暴潮的好处，但对于湿地损失和沿海开发的组合如何影响洪水范围和损失的空间分布，了解较少。在这项研究中，我们将高分辨率的二维水动力模型与土地利用/土地覆被变化分析相结合，以评估德克萨斯州加尔维斯顿湾总湿地损失、十年湿地损失和沿海开发对风暴潮灾害的影响。我们根据三种情景来测量飓风艾克造成的风暴潮洪水范围：（i）2008 年基线；（ii）2008 年无湿地；（iii）2019 年“现代艾克”。我们发现，在 2008 年的飓风艾克期间，沿海湿地的总损失将使损失增加约 9.34 亿美元，或比基线损失增加 12.8%。对于 2019 年的现代艾克情景，我们发现 2008 年至 2019 年期间湿地损失很少。如果飓风艾克发生在 2019 年，损失将增加约 25.2 亿美元，或增加 34.6%，这几乎完全是由于房地产价值的增加和新的沿海开发。我们的研究结果表明，尽管经济风险的增加是加尔维斯顿湾风暴潮风险的一个关键驱动因素，但有效的湿地保护仍然可以降低这些风险。
