Roles of mangroves in coastal protection

This project is to research the effectiveness of mangroves plant to act as a coastal
protection. After the tsunami in 2004, it can be observed that coastal areas protected by
mangroves forest received lesser damages. Malaysia also has some severe problems with
the erosion which can be lessen by mangroves. Mangroves have proven to be a potential
natural protection especially for areas with low and mild waves. The performance of
mangroves varies depending on their physical characteristics and group composition.
For this, the study on mangroves effect on wave attenuation in term of wave velocity
and wave height was done. Observation during site visit and lab experiments also
involved during this research. Experiment done by scaling and modeling natural
mangroves trees into smaller model. Wave Flume in Hydraulics Lab used for testing
purpose. From the experiments, we observed wave will be attenuated after passing the
mangrove model (about 19-28%). Velocity also decreased after passing the mangrove
model (about 3-20%). Hence, the findings of this research is that wave attenuated after
passing through mangroves forests, leading to decreasing of impact received by coastal
areas. It will prove the theory of Mangroves can acts as a natural coastal protection.