Overview on Mangrove Forest Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Functions

This paper provides a comprehensive overview on coastal protection and hazard mitigation by mangroves. Previous studies have made great strides to understand the mechanisms and influencing factors of mangroves’ protection function, including wave energy dissipation, storm surge damping, tsunami mitigation, adjustment to sea level rise and wind speed reduction, which are systematically summarized in this study. Moreover, the study analyzes the extensive physical models, based on indoor flume experiments and numerical models, that consider the interaction between mangroves and hydrodynamics, to help our understanding of mangrove-hydrodynamic interactions. Additionally, quantitative approaches for valuing coastal protection services provided by mangroves, including index-based and process-resolving approaches, are introduced in detail. Finally, we point out the limitations of previous studies, indicating that efforts are still required for obtaining more long-term field observations during extreme weather events, to create more real mangrove models for physical experiments, and to develop numerical models that consider the flexible properties of mangroves to better predict wave propagation in mangroves having complex morphology and structures.