Mangroves and coral reefs protect humans living in coastal and shoreline areas from storms. As climate change affects the extent and health of mangroves and coral reef, human vulnerability to storm events might increase. In the coming decades, severe storms, floods, sea rise level and increased sedimentation rates are expected to impact biodiversity, with biophysical changes as well as increased fragmentation of ecosystems. This in turn will affect the quality of the ecosystem services provided. We will use the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment conceptual model linking ecosystem services and human well being, focusing, to the extent that data are available, on cultural, supporting, provisioning and regulating ecosystem services. The research focuses on the coastal area where the population is dependent on ecosystem services provided by the coastal and shoreline area. Our research examines estimates of relative changes in the value of coastal protection services provided by shoreline and shoreline ecosystems, measured in monetary units, as used in previous studies (Costanza et al., 2008 and Brander et al., 2007). The methods employed in this study are an extension of those developed by Ghermandi et al. (2008), and use a meta-analytic regression to synthesize information on the economic value of coastal protection, and to support the development of a benefit transfer function. For the analysis, the dependent variable is dollar per hectare per year, and the independent variables, which account for ecosystem specific variable as well as socio-economic, geoclimatic and environmental indicators, include site characteristics, study characteristics and context variables. First, a baseline scenario is developed and second, the effects of climate change on coastal protection values are presented.
Results/Conclusions
Results show that the baseline size of the mangrove or coral reef is an important factor influencing the ecosystem service value in the regression. The location of the ecosystem services is also a significant factor in the ecosystem service value, though the analysis relies on the existing studies, which are not equally distributed across the world. The ecosystem service values determined for mangroves and coral reefs differ, and this may be the subject of a follow up study. Conclusions of the study are policy recommendations regarding the significant factors affecting ecosystem service under climate change. Affected countries and regions can use our framework to further refine and determine the values of mangroves and coral reefs, and plan to take actions to protect vulnerable human populations from severe storms associated with climate change.
