Impact of urbanization on coastal wetland structure and function

Evaluating ecosystem health in relation to the ecological, economic and human health spheres requires integrating human values with biophysical processes, an integration that has been explicitly avoided by conventional science. The field is advancing with the articulation of the linkages between human activity, regional and global environmental change, reduction in ecological services and the consequences for human health, economic opportunity and human communities. Increasing our understanding of these interactions will involve more active collaboration between the ecological, social and health sciences. In this, ecologists will have substantive and catalytic roles.

Whether or not mangroves function as buffers against tsunamis is the subject of in-depth research, the importance of which has been neglected or underestimated before the recent killer tsunami struck. Our preliminary post-tsunami surveys of Sri Lankan mangrove sites with different degrees of degradation indicate that human activity exacerbated the damage inflicted on the coastal zone by the tsunami.