Mangroves are disappearing rapidly worldwide despite their well documented biodiversity and the ecosystem services they provide. Failure to link ecological processes and their societal benefits has favored highly destructive aquaculture and tourism developments that threaten mangroves and result in costly "externalities." Specifically, the potentially irreparable damage to fisheries because of ...

Mangrove forests dominate the world's tropical and subtropical coastlines. Similar to other plant communities, nutrient availability is one of the major factors influencing mangrove forest structure and productivity. Many mangrove soils have extremely low nutrient availability, although nutrient availability can vary greatly among and within mangrove forests. Nutrient-conserving processes in ma...

Mangrove ecosystems are threatened by climate change. We review the state of knowledge of mangrove vulnerability and responses to predicted climate change and consider adaptation options. Based on available evidence, of all the climate change outcomes, relative sea-level rise may be the greatest threat to mangroves. Most mangrove sediment surface elevations are not keeping pace with sea-level r...

Mangroves are among the most threatened and rapidly disappearing natural environments worldwide. In addition to supporting a wide range of other ecological and economic functions, mangroves store considerable carbon. Here, we consider the global economic potential for protecting mangroves based exclusively on their carbon. We develop unique high-resolution global estimates (5' grid, about 9 × 9...

Mangroves grow in the intertidal parts of sheltered tropical coastlines, facilitating coastal stabilization and wave attenuation. Mangroves are widely threatened nowadays, although past studies have indicated their contribution to coastal safety. Most of these studies were based on numerical modeling however and a proper database with field observations is lacking yet. This paper presents part ...

Coastal wetlands can have exceptionally large carbon (C) stocks and their protection and restoration would constitute an effective mitigation strategy to climate change. Inclusion of coastal ecosystems in mitigation strategies requires quantification of carbon stocks in order to calculate emissions or sequestration through time. In this study, we quantified the ecosystem C stocks of coastal wet...

Mapping and assessment of mangrove environment are crucial since the mangrove has an important role in the process of human-environment interaction. In Indonesia alone, 25% of South East Asia's mangroves available are under threat. Recognizing the availability and the ability of new sensor of Landsat data, this study investigates the use of Landsat ETM + 7 and Landsat 8, acquired in 2002 and 20...

Mangroves are one of the most productive coastal communities in the world. Although we acknowledge the significance of ecosystems, mangroves are under natural and anthropogenic pressures at various scales. Therefore, understanding biophysical variations of mangrove forests is important. An extensive field survey is impossible within mangroves. WorldView-2 multi-spectral images having a 2-m spat...

Adriano Macia is a PhD candidate in the Systems Ecology Department, University of Stockholm. He holds a MSc degree in Marine Zoology from the University of Goteborg, Sweden. He is a lecturer in Marine Biology at the University Eduardo Mondlane, Maputo. He has research interests on the interlinkages between mangroves and commercial penaeid shrimps (the ecological role of mangroves as nurseries f...

Article history: Received 16 June 2016 Received in revised form 6 December 2016 Accepted 11 January 2017 Available online 19 January 2017 This study aims to determine the drivers of root decomposition and its role in carbon (C) budgets in mangroves and saltmarsh.We review thepatterns of root decomposition, and its contribution to C budgets, inmangroves and saltmarsh: the impact of climatic (tem...