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From the Editors of E/The Environmental Magazine
Natural Barriers Help When Nature Rages
Is it true that coastal development contributed to greater loss of life from the Indian Ocean tsunami?
The tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia in December was a natural catastrophe triggered by a massive undersea earthquake. But rampant coastal development in recent years - which removed the mangrove forests and coral reefs that had previously been abundant along shorelines - did contribute to the damage and death toll. These natural barriers formed a coastal greenbelt that served as both nursing grounds for fish and sea mammals and buffers against he pounding surf and occasional tidal wave.
Thailand's popular and extensively developed beach resorts were some of the hardest hit areas in the tsunami zone. In these especially vulnerable areas, hotels, shrimp farms, highways, housing and commercial developments have squeezed out the natural barriers that might have otherwise shielded many victims from the brunt of the deadly wave.
Edward Barbier, a University of Wyoming professor who has studied resource problems in developing countries for more than two decades, points out that explosive economic development since the 1960s has depleted half of Thailand's coastal mangrove forests. "Even nature's ecosystem could not have prevented the tsunami," says Barbier. "With an event that huge you have to expect great loss, but the question is, could some of it have been reduced?"
Tens of thousands of lives were spared by December's tsunami directly because of coastal conservation measures instituted in India, Malaysia and Sri Lanka to preserve mangrove forests and coral reefs, according to Meena Raman of Friends of the Earth International. "What we have seen in the tsunami crisis is that the areas that were protected naturally suffered less than those that were more exposed," Raman said. The protection of such natural walls may be the only long-term solution to defending coastal populations against future tidal waves.
Going forward, coastal communities in Southeast Asia and elsewhere are likely to suffer further from an even greater man-made environmental problem: global warming. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, an association of climate scientists that reviews and reports on the latest findings about climate change, sea levels have risen worldwide about six inches over the last century as a result of the industrial pollution that has warmed the globe. Many in the environmental community believe that a higher sea level overall also intensified the effect of the tsunami.
Scientists on the international panel expect that we may see an additional sea level rise of a foot or more over the next several decades as polar ice caps melt in response to rising global temperatures. That trend is certain to have much longer term negative effects on coastal communities and their inhabitants.
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