Total Water Level Mitigation Related to Fringing Reef and Upperbeach Vegetation Status at a Hurricane Exposed Coast

Increasing evidence suggests that coastal ecosystems provide significant protection against coastal flooding. However, these ecosystems are highly impacted by local human activities and climate change, which has resulted in reducing their extent and can limit their role in flooding mitigation. Most studies dealing with the coastal protection offered by ecosystems focus on a single ecosystem and, also seldom assess potential differences in protection with changes in status of the ecosystem. Therefore, based on a Xbeach Non-hydrostatic numerical modeling approach, we quantified the coastal inundation response to different combinations of ecosystems' health statuses. A combination of a fringing reef environment associated with a vegetated beach was chosen as this pattern is typical of many low-lying areas of the Caribbean and tropical areas in general. Our results, (1) highlight the potential of capitalizing on the combined impacts of multiple ecosystems on coastal protection, (2) alert to the consequences of further destruction of these ecosystems, (3) demonstrate the predominant role of vegetation with an increased sea-level rise and (4) provide strategies to limit the deleterious effects of present-day and future reef degradation.

Automated summary

Increasing evidence suggests that coastal ecosystems play a significant role in coastal flooding mitigation. However, human activities and climate change have negatively impacted these ecosystems, reducing their extent and limiting their protective function. To assess the impact of different ecosystem health statuses on coastal inundation, a numerical modeling approach was used. The results highlight the potential of multiple ecosystems working together for coastal protection, warn against further destruction of these ecosystems, emphasize the importance of vegetation in sea-level rise scenarios, and provide strategies to mitigate the effects of reef degradation.