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Comment by hammock | Hacker News Reader

Once again some context is missing.

Of course coastal erosion is caused by wave action. However, the reason it is a problem is because of mangrove deforestation. Over half of the Pacific islands' mangroves have been rapidly destroyed by human development efforts just in the last 20 years.

Mangroves are the natural, first and best line of defense against coastal erosion. They create soil. Without either mangroves or manmade seawalls, it doesn't matter what the sea level is - the coast will erode at an unsustainable rate.

It really grinds my gears that "solving climate change" - the hardest problem to solve - is presented as a panacea for what are really more complex environmental issues which actually happen to have simpler solutions.

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"Climate Change may wipe out large mangrove forests"

https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/912045029/climate-change-may-...

Even if logging is a concern, the mangroves wouldn't be as protective as you're implying.

Directly related reading:

"Mangroves in Tuvalu are threatened by various factors such as coastal erosion, pollution and on a long term basis the sea level rise due to global warming." (https://www.fao.org/forestry/9011-09d32b158b21752798b87b0378...)

Known at least as far back as 15 years ago: "Rising sea levels caused by global warming are posing a threat to mangroves and therefore communities in Pacific island nations, according to [the United Nations]" (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2006/jul/17/climatec...)

There is no question that mangroves can save shoreline, today.

The sea level rise in question is not enough to kill mangroves and won't be for some time. One source:

>The authors determined that accretion will not keep up beyond sea-level rise of 0.27 inches per year. Rutgers University climate data scientist Erica Ashe, one of the authors, says the current global rate is 0.134 inches

https://therevelator.org/mangroves-climate-change/

On an unrelated note, I am glad that you are doing some research and hopefully learning a bit along the way.

> There is no question that mangroves can save shoreline, today.

> The sea level rise in question is not enough to kill mangroves and won't be for some time. One source:

> > The authors determined that accretion will not keep up beyond sea-level rise of 0.27 inches per year. Rutgers University climate data scientist Erica Ashe, one of the authors, says the current global rate is 0.134 inches

> https://therevelator.org/mangroves-climate-change/

> On an unrelated note, I am glad that you are doing some research and hopefully learning a bit along the way.

Please reread your own sources. Your own source concludes in the paragraph following the one you cited that:

"Based on projected rates, mangrove trees could lose their race against rising water within the next 30 years."

See a few others which may be related:

http://www.tuvalu-overview.tv/pdf/mangrove_manual.pdf

https://wedocs.unep.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.11822/11812/...

Tldr: climate change begets soil erosion, which leads to loss of land mass... which disappears islands.

Let's stop disputing the obvious just to be a contrarian. Thanks, back to work for me. Wish you the best.

How much mangrove deforestation happens in Tuvalu?

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