About this Research Topic

Background

Interest in how coastal ecosystems can help attenuate energy from waves and currents is increasingly growing, aiming at promoting natural-based solutions (NBS) for coastal protection. The capacity of these ecosystems to reduce the incoming flow energy has already been proven. This capacity to protect coastal areas is beneficial and it is of great interest, especially for coastal developing nations where these ecosystems can play a crucial role in reducing risks to the population. Although modeling and observations are already informing NBS, it is still difficult to estimate the protection they provide under varied environmental conditions and ecosystem characteristics. New predictable tools and methodologies are needed to move forward with the implementation of these ecosystems in coastal protection practices. To ensure that those tools and methodologies are set in place, the first step is to better understand and parameterize the basic physical processes involved in flow-ecosystem interaction.

Field campaigns have been carried out to characterize ecosystem characteristics, as well as their induced hydrodynamic energy attenuation. Several laboratory experiments have also been performed to study flow-ecosystem interactions under controlled waves and current conditions. In addition, numerical models have been developed to provide tools able to estimate the protection provided by different ecosystems and flow conditions. These studies have enabled progress in the characterization of ecosystems and in their interaction with the flow and have been used as a basis for informing coastal managers and encourage the use of NBS. However, challenges remain in directly applying these observations and modeling in coastal protection practice. Specifically, a deeper understanding of how energy attenuation varies with local flow conditions and ecosystem properties, coupled with the need for predictable tools that do not rely on calibration coefficients, remains crucial to facilitate the prioritization of NBS for coastal adaptation.
The main goal of this Research Topic is to take a step forward in the correct estimation of the coastal protection service provided by ecosystems such as seagrasses, saltmarshes, coral reefs or mangroves, by obtaining new formulas and tools that allow us to describe this service by knowing the local flow and ecosystem properties.

We welcome original research articles that show significant progress in this area. Specifically, the Research Topic will focus on scientific advances that address gaps in our knowledge of the quantification of the coastal protection service provided by coastal ecosystems. Specific themes that are welcomed, include flow-ecosystem interaction characterization and modeling directly linked to the quantification of the coastal protection service provided by the ecosystem as a function of its characteristics. Some examples include observation and analysis of this interaction in the field, parameterization of the main physical processes by conducting experiments designed according to real conditions, or predictable numerical tools that do not depend on calibration parameters.

Keywords: coastal protection, coastal ecosystems, field observations, physical modeling, numerical modeling

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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