B.G. Reguero

University of California, Santa Cruz | UCSC · Institute of Marine Sciences

Coral reefs are effective natural barriers that protect adjacent coastal communities from hazards such as erosion and storm-induced flooding. However, the degradation of coral reefs compromises their efficacy to protect against these hazards, making degraded reefs a target for restoration. At present, there is little guidance on how and where to re...

Abstract The loss of functional and accreting coral reefs reduces coastal protection and resilience for tropical coastlines. Coral restoration has potential for recovering healthy reefs that can mitigate risks from coastal hazards and increase sustainability. However, scaling up restoration to the large extent needed for coastal protection requires...

Our study explores variations in the risk of fishery-dependent coastal nations to ocean acidification, sea surface temperature change, sea level rise, and storms. Our findings reveal differences in risk based on geographical location and the development status of a country. Our findings indicate significant geographical differences for three of the...

There is a growing need for coastal and marine restoration, but it is not clear how to pay for it given that environmental funding is low, and national budgets are stretched in response to natural hazards. We use risk-industry methods and find that coral reef and mangrove restoration could yield strong Return on Investment (ROI) for flood risk redu...

There are numerous global ocean wave reanalysis and hindcast products currently being distributed and used across different scientific fields. However, there is not a consistent dataset that can sample across all existing products based on a standardized framework. Here, we present and describe the first coordinated multi-product ensemble of presen...

Momentum for sustainable and climate resilience solutions for coastal protection are growing globally given the pressing need to prevent further loss of biodiversity and ecosystems while meeting the climate change adaptation and mitigation goals. Nature-Based Solutions (NbS) represent an opportunity to align environmental and resilience goals, at a...

Traditional methods to assess the probability of storm-induced erosion and flooding from extreme water levels have limited use along the U.S. West Coast where swell dominates erosion and storm surge is limited. This effort presents methodology to assess the probability of erosion and flooding for the U.S. West Coast from extreme total water levels...

Climate change is already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every inhabited region across the globe [...]

Coastal storms can affect marine fisheries in multiple ways and have the potential to negatively affect the socio-economic well-being of fishery dependent coastal nations. To date, storm risk to marine fisheries is poorly understood. This study provides a global assessment of coastal nations’ risk to storm impacts on their fisheries. We calculated...

Infrastructure must become more resilient as the global climate changes and also more affordable in the economic and political context of a post-COVID world. We can solve this dual challenge and drive global infrastructure investment into a more sustainable direction by taking our cues from Nature.

Coral reefs are increasingly recognized for their shoreline protection services. The hydrodynamic performance of this ecosystem is comparable to artificial low-crested structures often used in coastal protection, whose objective is to emulate the former. Coral reefs also provide other important environmental services (e.g., food production, habitat...

The Earth’s climate is changing; ice sheets and glaciers are melting and coastal hazards and sea level are rising in response. With a total population of over 300 million people situated on coasts, including 20 of the planet’s 33 megacities (over 10 million people), low-lying coastal areas represent one of the most vulnerable areas to the impacts o...

Habitats, such as coral reefs, can mitigate increasing flood damages through coastal protection services. We provide a fine-scale, national valuation of the flood risk reduction benefits of coral habitats to people, property, economies and infrastructure. Across 3,100 km of US coastline, the top-most 1 m of coral reefs prevents the 100-yr flood fro...

Extreme surface ocean waves are often primary drivers of coastal flooding and erosion over various time scales. Hence, understanding future changes in extreme wave events owing to global warming is of socio-economic and environmental significance. However, our current knowledge of potential changes in high-frequency (defined here as having return p...

Mangroves are critical nursery habitats for fish and invertebrates, providing livelihoods for many coastal communities. Despite their importance, there is currently no estimate of the number of fishers engaged in mangrove associated fisheries, nor of the fishing intensity associated with mangroves at a global scale. We address these gaps by develop...

Marine artisanal fisheries make vital contributions to food security, livelihoods, jobs, and income in coastal communities globally. However, resources vary as a result of changes in oceanographic conditions such as sea surface temperature or wind stress, which impacts communities and also makes them more sensitive to other stressors such as climat...

Responsiveness and resilience to coastal disasters is an increasingly critical need for governments, businesses, and communities as the intensity of hurricanes, coastal storms and sea level rise exacerbates flood and erosion damages. The number and severity of disasters have increased significantly over the past two decades while intense coastal de...

This Research Topic's focus is open to NBS in relation to climate hazards and perils, including wildfires, floods, erosion, and drought, and may include different environments such as forests and terrestrial ecosystems, urban areas, freshwater habitats, and coastal zones, including small island states. The main goal of this Research Topic is to en...

The main goal of this Special Issue is to gather and share best practices, successful policies, lessons learned, case studies, and general insights that can contribute to advancing coastal adaptation to climate change globally. Topics of interest may include (but are not limited to): • local adaptation projects and initiatives; • examples of imp...

Wave erosion has moved coastal cliffs and bluffs landward over the centuries. Now climate change-induced sea-level rise (SLR) and the changes in wave action are accelerating coastline retreat around the world. Documenting the erosion of cliffed coasts and projecting the rate of coastline retreat under future SLR scenarios are more challenging than...

Coastal development and climate change are dramatically increasing the risks of flooding, erosion, and extreme weather events. Coral reefs and other coastal ecosystems act as natural defenses against coastal hazards, but their degradation increases risk to people and property. Environmental degradation, however, has rarely been quantified as a driv...

The degradation of coastal habitats, particularly coral reefs, raises risks by increasing the exposure of coastal communities to flooding hazards. The protective services of these natural defenses are not assessed in the same rigorous economic terms as artificial defenses, such as seawalls, and therefore often are not considered in decision making....

Seawater reverse osmosis (SWRO) desalination is increasingly used as a technology for addressing shortages of freshwater supply and desalination plants are in operation or being planned world-wide and specifically in California, USA. However, the effects of continuous discharge of high-salinity brine into coastal environments are ill-constrained an...

Wind-generated ocean waves drive important coastal processes that determine flooding and erosion. Ocean warming has been one factor affecting waves globally. Most studies have focused on studying parameters such as wave heights, but a systematic, global and long-term signal of climate change in global wave behavior remains undetermined. Here we sho...

Coral reefs can provide significant coastal protection benefits to people and property. Here we show that the annual expected damages from flooding would double, and costs from frequent storms would triple without reefs. For 100-year storm events, flood damages would increase by 91% to $US 272 billion without reefs. The countries with the most to g...

Coastal risks are increasing from both development and climate change. Interest is growing in the protective role that coastal nature-based measures (or green infrastructure), such as reefs and wetlands, can play in adapting to these risks. However, a lack of quantitative information on their relative costs and benefits is one principal factor limi...

Study units and hazard centroids. The centroids (red dots) are the basic units where hazards are calculated and then associated to census tracts. (PNG)

Present and future exposure in the Gulf. Total asset value at reference date (2010) and two future timeframes (2030 and 2050), for the two scenarios of economic exposure growth. (DOCX)

Benefit to cost ratios for year 2050 under a low economic exposure growth. Benefit to cost ratios and total benefit for the list of adaptation measures, across scenarios of costs and effectiveness. The total climate risk for the scenario is 398.2 US$ billion (calculated from Annual Expected Damages over a 40-year period). Total cost-effective adapt...

Statistics of simulated storms based on historical tracks. The simulation reproduces the statistical distribution of Accumulated Cyclone Energy (upper left panel), the number of tropical storms (upper right), total number of hurricanes (lower left) and major hurricanes, i.e. category 3 or above (lower right). (PNG)

Wave height validation. Significant wave height at NOAA buoy 42040 (29.212 North, 88.207 West, 164.6 m deep). (TIF)

Relative sea level rise. Historical relative Sea Level Rise trends (mm/yr) from NOAA [75] and the subsidence field digitalized from Ivins et al [77]. (TIF)

Adaptation model. Representation of the model to estimate adaptation for each measure. The S-shape curves represent how adaptation is considered in the damage curves: Hazard Reduction; first line of defense until overtopped (FL); local overtopping (OV); and elevation of structures (EL). MSL: Mean Sea Level, FH: Flooding Height onshore; Zi: topograp...

Cost estimates and sources of information. Review of cost estimates and sources of information for the definition of the adaptation measures. (DOCX)

Effect of discounting rates. Benefit to cost ratios and total benefit for the list of adaptation measures, across scenarios of costs and effectiveness. Total cost-effective adaptation is the aggregated value of the total benefits (TB) for all measures with benefit to coast ratio (B/C) above 1. The nature-based cost-effective adaptation is the aggre...

Risk now and in the year 2030. Risk evolution between 2010 and 2030 for the two economic scenarios: Low economic exposure growth (left panels), and high economic exposure Growth (right panels). Bars represent current risk (left) and future risk (right), and separate between the contribution from future economic exposure and climate. Upper panels (a...

Hazard attenuation from different coastal features. Range of parameters found in the literature and data sources for attenuation of hazard for different coastal features, along with a brief description of the basic principle for protection. (DOCX)

Benefit to cost ratios for year 2030 under a high economic exposure growth. Benefit to cost ratios and total benefit for the list of adaptation measures, across scenarios of costs and effectiveness. The total climate risk for the scenario is 176.6 US$ billion (calculated from Annual Expected Damages over a 20-year period). Total cost-effective adap...

Supplementary methods and results: ‘Supplementary_methods_and_results.doc’. (DOC)

Permission and sources of photos. ‘Permission and sources of photos.doc’. (DOCX)

Value of assets in the US Gulf. Spatial distribution of value of assets in low-lying zones across the Gulf (below 10 m ground elevation) by county level. The topographic distribution of asset value aggregates for the Gulf is plotted in a subpanel (bar graphic), where the x-axis represents ground height and the y-axis total asset value across the Gu...

Annual expected damage by census tract across the US Gulf. Upper panel shows Annual Expected Damage (AED) by county, with reference in year 2010. Lower panel shows the change in AED in 2030, showing areas with the greatest added risks from low economic exposure growth and climate change. Values are given in US$ Millions. (TIF)

Comparison of the costs and benefits of adaptation measures. Benefit to cost ratios are represented in the vertical axis (height of the bars), with the horizontal axis noting the aggregated benefit (i.e. total averted damage), and the width of the bars the individual benefit from each measure. Panel a: default estimates of protection and cost, equi...

Coastal communities in tropical environments are at increasing risk from both environmental degradation and climate change and require urgent local adaptation action. Evidences show coral reefs play a critical role in wave attenuation but relatively little direct connection has been drawn between these effects and impacts on shorelines. Reefs are r...

As climate change progresses, so does the risk from hurricanes, flooding, and other natural disasters. As sea level rises, tropical cyclones will pose a greater risk of extreme flooding and are likely to inflict the greatest damages on highly populated shorelines. A catastrophic hurricane season in the Caribbean during 2017 is exemplifies how these...

Coral reefs and dune systems provide substantial risk reduction benefits to people and property, and the loss of just one meter of reef crest or dune height can significantly increase risk. Coral reef and dune conservation and restoration could, therefore, be an important part of the solution for reducing risks from natural hazards in Quintana Roo...

As the world’s population grows to a projected 11.2 billion by 2100, the number of people living in low-lying areas exposed to coastal hazards is projected to increase. Critical infrastructure and valuable assets continue to be placed in vulnerable areas, and in recent years, millions of people have been displaced by natural hazards. Impacts from c...

Complete list of data sources. (PDF)

Various outputs from Self-Organizing Maps and K-Means algorithms. (PDF)

Coastal habitats can substantially reduce the damages caused by coastal storms. However, the value of these natural defences is still not fully recognised. Consequently habitats are being destroyed or severely degraded in many parts of the world. Furthermore, despite widespread interest in natural and nature based coastal defence solutions, the upt...

As exposure to coastal hazards increases there is growing interest in nature-based solutions for risk reduction. This study uses high-resolution ood and loss models to quantify the impacts of coastal wetlands in the northeastern USA on (i) regional ood damages by Hurricane Sandy and (ii) local annual ood losses in Barnegat Bay in Ocean County, New...

Resumen En un contexto de crecientes impactos y riesgos socio-económicos en las costas del planeta, la protección costera basada en ecosistemas surge como un nuevo paradigma que une los principios de protección, sostenibilidad y resiliencia, a la vez que proporciona múltiples beneficios. Este artículo ofrece una perspectiva sobre qué son y cómo se...

Coastal communities throughout the world are exposed to numerous and increasing threats, such as coastal flooding and erosion, saltwater intrusion and wetland degradation. Here, we present the first global-scale analysis of the main drivers of coastal flooding due to large-scale oceanographic factors. Given the large dimensionality of the problem (...

The degradation of coastal habitats, particularly coral reefs, raises risks by exposing communities to flooding hazards. The protective services of these natural defenses are not assessed in the same rigorous, economic terms as artificial defenses such as seawalls, and therefore often not considered in decision-making. Here we present a new methodo...