Mangroves: Importance of coastal ecology
Mangroves have a significant role to play in our everyday lives. They act as natural barriers for coastal areas by absorbing the impact of tsunami and floods. The sloping nature of their roots slows down the force of waves, thus protecting coastlines during a tsunami. The mangrove plants filter sediments and pollutants from water before they could reach the coastal line and cause damage. They form an intricate network with nearby coral reefs, which provides a home for different species of fish and other sea animals.
Importance of mangroves in maintaining coastal ecology
Mangrove forests possess significant ecological, economic, and cultural values for humans around the globe. These are ecosystems that can be classified as salt marshes and shrub vegetation with a unique mangrove ecosystem of a specific type of plants and animals. Let’s see some wonderful importance of mangroves in maintaining coastal ecology.
- Maintain Coastal Ecology: Mangroves help to maintain coastal ecology by depositing solid material and forming a stable habitat for marine life.
- Edge Effect: The mangroves come into the coastal ecosystems and creates edge effect. This means that mangrove forest in the coast acts as a large habitat for hundreds of species.
- Renewable Resources: Mangroves are among the most productive terrestrial ecosystems and are a natural, renewable resource. They are found in brackish water and fresh water bodies such as tidal estuaries, lagoons, tropical coastal marine waters, and sheltered bays where they are able to sustain in conditions of high salinity and extreme tides.
- Ecological Niches: Mangroves are a unique type of tree that grows in the intertidal zone, or area where the tide oscillates between land and sea. Areas of mangrove forests are important for biodiversity and protection from coastal hazards such as erosion. Mangroves provide ecological niches for a wide variety of organisms. They serve as breeding, feeding, and nursery grounds for fisheries and provide timber and wood for fuel.
- Water Filters: Mangroves are incredibly valuable. Not only do they provide shelter and food for millions of people living within the coastal regions, but they are also water purifiers and filters, defend from cyclones, absorb carbon dioxide and help in protecting coral reefs.
- Valuable Plants: Mangroves are unique and complex ecosystems that provide valuable forest products and ecosystem services to local communities around the world. In addition to timber, firewood and wood for construction, community members can benefit from these ecosystems by using the leaves and shoots of certain mangrove plant species for medicinal and food purposes.
- Employment Opportunities: Mangroves are crucial to our planet. They provide numerous employment opportunities to local communities and augment their livelihoods. Mangrove forests are known to be among the most productive ecosystems, especially in poor countries.
- Shock absorber: Mangroves are important as they act as natural barriers against tidal inrush, high waves and strong currents. They also protect the coastline from erosion by absorbing the impact of waves.
Causes of Depletion of mangroves
There are many causes of the depletion of mangroves forests which are greenhouse emissions, deposition, and pollution as well as sea-level rise. Some of them are discussed below.
- Sea Level Rise: Sea level rise is one of the most significant threats for mangroves since they are located in low-lying areas. This makes them prone to inundation during high tide as well as global warming. As a result of these factors, many mangrove forests have been depleted resulting in loss of habitat for several marine species that rely on their existence.
- Reduction in river water levels: One of the main causes of the destruction of mangroves is the reduction in river water. The trees are more prevalent where rivers meet the sea and they require a fine balance between salty and sweet waters to survive. When dams are built in these areas, there is a reduction in river water flow which destroys mangroves.
- Alien species Invasion: The ecological balance is upset by the introduction of alien species in the area. The fact that alien species are more aggressive and advance in comparison to native species makes them the cause for depleting the mangrove's habitat.
- Clearing: Mangroves are being cleared for a number of reasons. They are cut down to make the land available for agriculture, settlements, industries, and aquaculture, etc. Rapid population growth, high demand for fish and shrimp, poor terrain conditions in some regions are few reasons that contribute to the depletion of mangroves.
- Overexploitation: The disappearance of mangroves is particularly acute in the coastal regions, especially in developing countries where poverty and population pressures combine to push local people into overexploitation of mangroves.
- Damming of rivers:Dams built over the river courses reduce the amount of water and sediments reaching mangrove forests, altering their salinity level. Mangroves further suffer due to reduced tidal flushing rates that result from damming of river courses. Altered salinity levels negatively impact the growth and species diversity of mangroves. Another negative impact of dams is related to mangrove loss due to increased sediments reaching mangroves, which are vulnerable to sedimentation.
- Destruction of coral reefs:The coral reefs that protect the shoreline are extremely important. But sometimes they provide the first barrier against currents and strong waves. When they are destroyed, even stronger-than-normal waves reaching the coast can wash away the fine sediment in which the mangroves grow.
- Pollution:Pollution is a major cause of concern. Mangroves also face severe threats due to fertilisers, pesticides, discharge of domestic sewage and industrial effluents carried down by the river systems.
- Climate change:Climate change has become a cause of depletion of mangroves around the world. Unusually low rainfall and very high sea surface and air temperatures caused severe threats to the survival of mangrove forests.
