Book chapter
More Intense Severe Tropical Cyclones in Recent Decades Cause Greater Impacts on Mangroves Bordering Australia's Great Barrier Reef
Oceanographic Processes of Coral Reefs, pp.226-253
CRC Press, 2
2024
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Abstract
A number of published articles about the environmental impacts of climate change indicate that mangrove habitats are prone to greater damage from increasingly more intense tropical cyclones in recent decades. We review such concerns by investigating the impacts of severe tropical cyclones (STCs) on shoreline mangroves bordering Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR). Specifically, we consider the STCs that have crossed the coastline during the last half century. There were 11 STCs between 1987 and 2020. Available satellite data were used to quantify the extent and severity of damage to mangroves for each event, along with an appraisal of recovery. There were several significant findings. Firstly, we found that STC events had occurred widely across the GBR area from Torres Strait to the Tropic of Capricorn. Secondly, we observed notable increases in both the number and intensity of STCs. This was especially notable in the recent decade (2010-2019) with 7 in this decade compared to the 0-2 per decade recorded earlier. This observation was significant because the damage to shoreline mangroves increased markedly in unison with the increased intensity of recent STCs. We also observed that some sites suffered repeated impacts from 2-3 STCs during the study period. These impacts were accumulative, further delaying and disrupting recovery. Although natural recovery was shown to be efficient, the innate processes involved means that it was linear by taking set amounts of time. This situation presents natural resource managers with the well-known paradoxical dilemma of how to sustain natural ecosystems faced with unprecedented, ever-increasing external pressures. It seems that the longer-term survival of mangrove ecosystems in the GBR area are becoming more dependent on adaptive management requiring threat minimisation while finding more effective ways to strengthen habitat resilience. In view of the rapidly changing environmental conditions, this study demonstrates the considerable insights to be drawn from monitoring these valued coastal marine resources that is one of the dominant change-driving processes.
Details
- Title
- More Intense Severe Tropical Cyclones in Recent Decades Cause Greater Impacts on Mangroves Bordering Australia's Great Barrier Reef
- Creators
- Norman C. DukeAdam D. CanningJock R. Mackenzie
- Contributors
- Eric Wolanski (Editor)Michael J. Kingsford (Editor)
- Publication Details
- Oceanographic Processes of Coral Reefs, pp.226-253
- Publisher
- CRC Press; Boca Raton
- Edition
- 2
- Identifiers
- 991013165310402368
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Book chapter