IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecoser/v46y2020ics2212041620301479.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The value of coastal wetlands for storm protection in Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Mulder, Obadiah J
  • Mulder, Kenneth P
  • Kubiszewski, Ida
  • Anderson, Sharolyn J
  • Costanza, Robert
  • Sutton, Paul

Abstract

Cyclones cause significant damage, particularly to coastal areas. In the 50 years between 1967 and 2016, 54 cyclones struck Australia with total damages of approximately AUD 3 billion. Wetlands diminish cyclone impacts by absorbing storm surges and slowing winds. We examine the effects of wetlands on cyclone damage by creating a Bayesian regression model for storm damage as a function of wind speed, economic development in the storm swath, and the area of wetlands in the coastal plain in the storm swath using data from all 54 storms. Our results show that wind speed has a strong positive effect on cyclone damage and that wetland area has a strong negative effect. We estimate a total of AUD 29.6 billion of damage was averted during the 54 storms because of the presence of wetlands with a median of AUD 236 million per storm. This equates to an average of AUD 4203 per year per hectare of wetland, consistent with previous studies. Our results suggest that preserving wetlands is a cost-effective way to minimize cyclone damage while providing numerous other valuable ecosystem services. We estimate that maintaining at least 1.5% of coastal area as wetlands maximizes the averted damage.

Suggested Citation

  • Mulder, Obadiah J & Mulder, Kenneth P & Kubiszewski, Ida & Anderson, Sharolyn J & Costanza, Robert & Sutton, Paul, 2020. "The value of coastal wetlands for storm protection in Australia," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecoser:v:46:y:2020:i:c:s2212041620301479
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101205
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212041620301479
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101205?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. de Groot, Rudolf & Brander, Luke & van der Ploeg, Sander & Costanza, Robert & Bernard, Florence & Braat, Leon & Christie, Mike & Crossman, Neville & Ghermandi, Andrea & Hein, Lars & Hussain, Salman & , 2012. "Global estimates of the value of ecosystems and their services in monetary units," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 50-61.
    2. Kubiszewski, Ida & Costanza, Robert & Anderson, Sharolyn & Sutton, Paul, 2017. "The future value of ecosystem services: Global scenarios and national implications," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 26(PA), pages 289-301.
    3. Liu, Xin & Wang, Yebao & Costanza, Robert & Kubiszewski, Ida & Xu, Ning & Yuan, Meihua & Geng, Ruiying, 2019. "The value of China’s coastal wetlands and seawalls for storm protection," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 1-1.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carole L. Crumley, 2021. "Historical Ecology: A Robust Bridge between Archaeology and Ecology," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-12, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Haojie & Costanza, Robert & Kubiszewski, Ida, 2022. "Legitimacy and limitations of valuing the oxygen production of ecosystems," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 58(C).
    2. Rocchi, L. & Cortina, C. & Paolotti, L. & Massei, G. & Fagioli, F.F. & Antegiovanni, P. & Boggia, A., 2019. "Provision of ecosystem services from the management of Natura 2000 sites in Umbria (Italy): Comparing the costs and benefits, using choice experiment," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 13-20.
    3. Luo, Xiangyu & Jiang, Peng & Yang, Jingyi & Jin, Jing & Yang, Jun, 2021. "Simulating PM2.5 removal in an urban ecosystem based on the social-ecological model framework," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    4. Grêt-Regamey, Adrienne & Weibel, Bettina, 2020. "Global assessment of mountain ecosystem services using earth observation data," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 46(C).
    5. Buckwell, Andrew & Fleming, Christopher & Smart, James & Mackey, Brendan & Ware, Daniel & Hallgren, Willow & Sahin, Oz & Nalau, Johanna, 2018. "Valuing aggregated ecosystem services at a national and regional scale for Vanuatu using a remotely operable, rapid assessment methodology," 2018 Conference (62nd), February 7-9, 2018, Adelaide, Australia 273524, Australian Agricultural and Resource Economics Society.
    6. Costanza, Robert & de Groot, Rudolf & Braat, Leon & Kubiszewski, Ida & Fioramonti, Lorenzo & Sutton, Paul & Farber, Steve & Grasso, Monica, 2017. "Twenty years of ecosystem services: How far have we come and how far do we still need to go?," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 28(PA), pages 1-16.
    7. Lee, Dong Joo & Brown, Mark T., 2021. "Estimating the Value of Global Ecosystem Structure and Productivity: A Geographic Information System and Emergy Based Approach," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 439(C).
    8. Schibalski, Anett & Kleyer, Michael & Maier, Martin & Schröder, Boris, 2022. "Spatiotemporally explicit prediction of future ecosystem service provisioning in response to climate change, sea level rise, and adaptation strategies," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    9. Jiang, Hongqiang & Wu, Wenjun & Wang, Jinnan & Yang, Weishan & Gao, Yueming & Duan, Yang & Ma, Guoxia & Wu, Chunsheng & Shao, Jiacheng, 2021. "Mapping global value of terrestrial ecosystem services by countries," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    10. Lee, Dong Joo & Choi, Moon Bo, 2020. "Ecological value of global terrestrial plants," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 438(C).
    11. Gashaw, Temesgen & Tulu, Taffa & Argaw, Mekuria & Worqlul, Abeyou W. & Tolessa, Terefe & Kindu, Mengistie, 2018. "Estimating the impacts of land use/land cover changes on Ecosystem Service Values: The case of the Andassa watershed in the Upper Blue Nile basin of Ethiopia," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 31(PA), pages 219-228.
    12. Fenta, Ayele Almaw & Tsunekawa, Atsushi & Haregeweyn, Nigussie & Tsubo, Mitsuru & Yasuda, Hiroshi & Shimizu, Katsuyuki & Kawai, Takayuki & Ebabu, Kindiye & Berihun, Mulatu Liyew & Sultan, Dagnenet & B, 2020. "Cropland expansion outweighs the monetary effect of declining natural vegetation on ecosystem services in sub-Saharan Africa," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    13. Santos-Martín, F. & Zorrilla-Miras, P. & Palomo, I. & Montes, C. & Benayas, J. & Maes, J., 2019. "Protecting nature is necessary but not sufficient for conserving ecosystem services: A comprehensive assessment along a gradient of land-use intensity in Spain," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 43-51.
    14. Chaikaew, Pasicha & Hodges, Alan W. & Grunwald, Sabine, 2017. "Estimating the value of ecosystem services in a mixed-use watershed: A choice experiment approach," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 228-237.
    15. Qu, Yang & Hooper, Tara & Austen, Melanie C. & Papathanasopoulou, Eleni & Huang, Junling & Yan, Xiaoyu, 2023. "Development of a computable general equilibrium model based on integrated macroeconomic framework for ocean multi-use between offshore wind farms and fishing activities in Scotland," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 332(C).
    16. Liu, Duan & Tang, Runcheng & Xie, Jun & Tian, Jingjing & Shi, Rui & Zhang, Kai, 2020. "Valuation of ecosystem services of rice–fish coculture systems in Ruyuan County, China," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 41(C).
    17. Pan, Ying & Wu, Junxi & Zhang, Yanjie & Zhang, Xianzhou & Yu, Chengqun, 2021. "Simultaneous enhancement of ecosystem services and poverty reduction through adjustments to subsidy policies relating to grassland use in Tibet, China," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 48(C).
    18. Hackbart, Vivian C.S. & de Lima, Guilherme T.N.P. & dos Santos, Rozely F., 2017. "Theory and practice of water ecosystem services valuation: Where are we going?," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 218-227.
    19. Nibedita Mukherjee & Jean Huge & Farid Dahdouh-Guebas & Nico Koedam, 2014. "Ecosystem service valuations of mangrove ecosystems to inform decision making and future valuation exercises," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/217963, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    20. Rodríguez-Ortega, T. & Olaizola, A.M. & Bernués, A., 2018. "A novel management-based system of payments for ecosystem services for targeted agri-environmental policy," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 34(PA), pages 74-84.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecoser:v:46:y:2020:i:c:s2212041620301479. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/ecosystem-services .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.