Mangroves provide numerous essential ecosystem services that benefit both the environment and human communities. These services can be broadly categorized into provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services:

1. Provisioning Services

• Fisheries and Food Supply: Mangroves are nurseries for many fish, crustaceans, and mollusks, supporting coastal and offshore fisheries. This directly supports food security and livelihoods for millions, particularly in tropical regions.
• Timber and Fuelwood: Mangrove wood is used for fuel, construction, and even traditional medicine in some communities, though sustainable harvesting practices are essential to avoid depletion.
• Raw Materials: Mangroves produce products such as honey, tannins, and natural dyes that local communities use and trade.

2. Regulating Services

• Coastal Protection: Mangrove forests act as natural buffers against storms, hurricanes, and erosion by dissipating wave energy, reducing coastal erosion, and stabilizing shorelines. This helps protect inland communities and reduces property and infrastructure damage.
• Carbon Sequestration: Mangroves are highly efficient at sequestering carbon, storing up to five times more carbon per area than terrestrial forests. They play a significant role in mitigating climate change by capturing atmospheric carbon dioxide.
• Water Filtration: Mangroves filter out pollutants and trap sediments from rivers and runoff before they reach coastal waters. This helps maintain water quality, protecting coral reefs, seagrass beds, and other marine ecosystems.

3. Supporting Services

• Biodiversity Habitat: Mangroves provide critical habitat for numerous species, including fish, birds, insects, and other wildlife. Many marine species rely on mangroves for part of their life cycle, particularly during juvenile stages.
• Nutrient Cycling: Mangrove ecosystems play a crucial role in nutrient cycling, transforming organic materials and nutrients into forms that are accessible to other marine life, thus supporting broader marine productivity.

4. Cultural Services

• Tourism and Recreation: Mangrove ecosystems attract ecotourism for bird watching, kayaking, and nature tours, benefiting local economies. They provide unique recreational opportunities and are valued for their scenic beauty.
• Cultural and Spiritual Value: Many indigenous and local communities consider mangroves to be sacred spaces. They are integrated into cultural practices, traditional knowledge, and spiritual beliefs.

Sana Ahmed

Take a look at:

https://soils.ifas.ufl.edu/media/soilsifasufledu/sws-main-site/pdf/technical-papers/Verge_Kara_Immediate_Release.pdf

Thanks!

Multifunctional Benefits of Community-Based Mangrove Restoration in Gujarat: An Analysis

Mangroves and Coastal Protection

The indirect benefits of mangroves, such as coastal protection and nonuse values (option, bequest and existence values) are more difficult to measure. Since the establishment of the Buswang mangrove, storm surge damage and coastal erosion has been negligible, whereas in some other countries around the Indian Ocean, cases about storm-associated costs have been documented (Gilman et al. 2008).

In India for instance, monetary losses due to repair and reconstruction costs of personal property (including livestock and agricultural products) ranged between US$ 32/household in mangrove-protected villages to US$ 154/household in villages that were not protected by mangroves (Badola and Hussain 2005). Other indirect benefits include accretion of agricultural land. In the Sundarbans in Bangladesh, the planting of 150,000 ha of mixed mangrove species has enhanced the deposition of sediments to such an extent that the elevation of 60,000 ha is no longer suitable for mangrove, and can be used for agriculture worth US$ 800/ha/annum (Saenger and

Siddiqi 1993).

There is a growing urgency for conserving and restoring protective mangrove greenbelts to lessen the dangers from catastrophes affecting the coasts, such as sealevel rise, hurricanes and storm surges. Reportedly, mangroves can buffer against the fury of such destructive storms, protecting those settlements located behind a healthy mangrove fringe. In regions where these coastal fringe forests have been cleared, tremendous problems of erosion and siltation have arisen, and terrible losses to human life and property have occurred due to destructive hurricanes, storm surges

and tsunamis. In the Mekong Delta, Soc Trang province, Vietnam, extensive planting of Rhizophora species was used as a coastal protection measure (Viswanathan et al. 2011).

Please read more: Viswanathan, P. K. (2016). Multifunctional Benefits of Community-Based Mangrove Restoration in Gujarat: An Analysis. In: Ghosh, N., Mukhopadhyay, P., Shah, A., Panda, M. (eds) Nature, Economy and Society. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2404-4_12

Chapter Multifunctional Benefits of Community-Based Mangrove Restora...