Widespread mangrove damage resulting from the 2017 Atlantic mega hurricane season

Comprised of 17 named tropical storms, 6 of which were major hurricanes, the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season ranked as one of the most damaging and costly hurricane seasons on record. In addition to socio-economic impacts, many previous studies have shown that important coastal ecosystems like mangro...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Taillie, P.J., Román Cuesta, Rosa María, Lagomasino, D., Cifuentes-Jara, M., Fatoyinbo, T., Ott, L.E., Poulter, B.
Format: Journal Article
Language:Inglés
Published: IOP Publishing 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10568/112884
_version_ 1855520117389000704
author Taillie, P.J.
Román Cuesta, Rosa María
Lagomasino, D.
Cifuentes-Jara, M.
Fatoyinbo, T.
Ott, L.E.
Poulter, B.
author_browse Cifuentes-Jara, M.
Fatoyinbo, T.
Lagomasino, D.
Ott, L.E.
Poulter, B.
Román Cuesta, Rosa María
Taillie, P.J.
author_facet Taillie, P.J.
Román Cuesta, Rosa María
Lagomasino, D.
Cifuentes-Jara, M.
Fatoyinbo, T.
Ott, L.E.
Poulter, B.
author_sort Taillie, P.J.
collection Repository of Agricultural Research Outputs (CGSpace)
description Comprised of 17 named tropical storms, 6 of which were major hurricanes, the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season ranked as one of the most damaging and costly hurricane seasons on record. In addition to socio-economic impacts, many previous studies have shown that important coastal ecosystems like mangroves are shaped by severe storms. However, little is known about how the cumulative effects of storms over entire hurricane seasons affect mangroves across large regions. We used satellite imagery from the entire Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico region to show that 2017 resulted in disproportionate mangrove damage compared to baseline responses over the previous 8 years. Specifically, we observed 30 times more mangrove damage, via a reduction in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), during 2017 compared to any of the eight previous hurricane seasons, and most (72%) of this damage persisted throughout the 7 month post-hurricane season period as indicated by no NDVI recovery. Furthermore, wind speed, rainfall, and canopy height data showed that mangrove damage primarily resulted from high maximum wind speeds, but flooding (cumulative rainfall), previous storm history, and mangrove structure (canopy height) were also important predictors of damage. While mangroves are known to be resilient to hurricane impacts, our results suggest that increasingly frequent mega-hurricane seasons in the Caribbean region will dramatically alter mangrove disturbance dynamics.
format Journal Article
id CGSpace112884
institution CGIAR Consortium
language Inglés
publishDate 2020
publishDateRange 2020
publishDateSort 2020
publisher IOP Publishing
publisherStr IOP Publishing
record_format dspace
spelling CGSpace1128842024-06-26T09:36:52Z Widespread mangrove damage resulting from the 2017 Atlantic mega hurricane season Taillie, P.J. Román Cuesta, Rosa María Lagomasino, D. Cifuentes-Jara, M. Fatoyinbo, T. Ott, L.E. Poulter, B. mangroves Comprised of 17 named tropical storms, 6 of which were major hurricanes, the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season ranked as one of the most damaging and costly hurricane seasons on record. In addition to socio-economic impacts, many previous studies have shown that important coastal ecosystems like mangroves are shaped by severe storms. However, little is known about how the cumulative effects of storms over entire hurricane seasons affect mangroves across large regions. We used satellite imagery from the entire Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico region to show that 2017 resulted in disproportionate mangrove damage compared to baseline responses over the previous 8 years. Specifically, we observed 30 times more mangrove damage, via a reduction in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), during 2017 compared to any of the eight previous hurricane seasons, and most (72%) of this damage persisted throughout the 7 month post-hurricane season period as indicated by no NDVI recovery. Furthermore, wind speed, rainfall, and canopy height data showed that mangrove damage primarily resulted from high maximum wind speeds, but flooding (cumulative rainfall), previous storm history, and mangrove structure (canopy height) were also important predictors of damage. While mangroves are known to be resilient to hurricane impacts, our results suggest that increasingly frequent mega-hurricane seasons in the Caribbean region will dramatically alter mangrove disturbance dynamics. 2020-06-01 2021-03-08T09:03:59Z 2021-03-08T09:03:59Z Journal Article https://hdl.handle.net/10568/112884 en Open Access IOP Publishing Taillie, P.J., Roman-Cuesta, R.M., Lagomasino, D., Cifuentes-Jara, M., Fatoyinbo, T., Ott, L.E., Poulter, B. 2020. Widespread mangrove damage resulting from the 2017 Atlantic mega hurricane season. Environmental Research Letters 15 (6): 064010. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab82cf
spellingShingle mangroves
Taillie, P.J.
Román Cuesta, Rosa María
Lagomasino, D.
Cifuentes-Jara, M.
Fatoyinbo, T.
Ott, L.E.
Poulter, B.
Widespread mangrove damage resulting from the 2017 Atlantic mega hurricane season
title Widespread mangrove damage resulting from the 2017 Atlantic mega hurricane season
title_full Widespread mangrove damage resulting from the 2017 Atlantic mega hurricane season
title_fullStr Widespread mangrove damage resulting from the 2017 Atlantic mega hurricane season
title_full_unstemmed Widespread mangrove damage resulting from the 2017 Atlantic mega hurricane season
title_short Widespread mangrove damage resulting from the 2017 Atlantic mega hurricane season
title_sort widespread mangrove damage resulting from the 2017 atlantic mega hurricane season
topic mangroves
url https://hdl.handle.net/10568/112884
work_keys_str_mv AT tailliepj widespreadmangrovedamageresultingfromthe2017atlanticmegahurricaneseason
AT romancuestarosamaria widespreadmangrovedamageresultingfromthe2017atlanticmegahurricaneseason
AT lagomasinod widespreadmangrovedamageresultingfromthe2017atlanticmegahurricaneseason
AT cifuentesjaram widespreadmangrovedamageresultingfromthe2017atlanticmegahurricaneseason
AT fatoyinbot widespreadmangrovedamageresultingfromthe2017atlanticmegahurricaneseason
AT ottle widespreadmangrovedamageresultingfromthe2017atlanticmegahurricaneseason
AT poulterb widespreadmangrovedamageresultingfromthe2017atlanticmegahurricaneseason