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Integrating Blue Carbon into Sustainable and Resilient Coastal Development
Published in Lisamarie Windham-Myers, Stephen Crooks, Tiffany G. Troxler, A Blue Carbon Primer, 2018
Stephen Crooks, Christine May, Ryan Whisnant, Michelle Orr
The appropriate use of natural infrastructure and its benefits relative to traditional hard approaches depend on the landscape setting and planning context. Significantly, natural infrastructure requires space. While meaningful wave attenuation can occur within the first few meters of the wetland margin, large areas (kilometers rather than meters) of mangroves and coastal marshes are required to reduce surging flood water levels, with the magnitude of reduction dependent on the strength and duration of a given storm (Wamsley et al. 2009; Wamsley et al. 2010; Zhang et al. 2012). Traditional hard infrastructure typically requires a smaller footprint. Because hard infrastructure is static, fixing the shoreline in place, the shore protection benefits and limits of hard infrastructure are more readily quantifiable from an engineering perspective, which provides a level of comfort to decision-makers even when use of natural infrastructure may be more appropriate. However, because of its static nature, hard infrastructure can be brittle when thresholds are exceeded (Gittman et al. 2014). Natural systems are adaptable to highly dynamic conditions and can often recover following damage (e.g., Paling et al. 2008; Gittman et al. 2014). Over time, coastal wetlands accumulate sediments, building in elevation and thus naturally maintaining their benefits with sea level rise, up to a point. Under conditions of high rates of sea level rise, or other forms of stress, coastal wetlands can drown and convert from intact vegetated ecosystems to unvegetated flats and open water (Morris et al. 2012; Kerwin and Megonigal 2013). But, it is important to create space for wetlands to migrate landwards as part of a resilient response to sea level rise (Pethick and Crooks 2000).
Mega infrastructure projects as agents of change: new perspectives on ‘the global infrastructure gap’
Published in Journal of Mega Infrastructure & Sustainable Development, 2019
Harry T. Dimitriou, Brian G. Field
Physical infrastructure as described above is sometimes referred to as ‘hard infrastructure’ and the non-physical infrastructure as ‘soft infrastructure’. This categorisation should not, however, be confused with an alternative use of the terms whereby physical infrastructure assets, such as those of the transport, water, energy and real estate sectors are frequently referred to as ‘hard infrastructure’, while the physical infrastructure assets of the health, education and social welfare sectors are referred to as ‘soft infrastructure’. We do not intend to take a position here regarding this debate but merely point out that these different perspectives are often a source of confusion, misunderstanding, mis-analysis and debate among different stakeholders.