Cyclones cause significant damage, particularly to coastal areas. In the 50 years between 1967 and 2016, 54 cyclones struck Australia with total damages of approximately AUD 3 billion. Wetlands diminish cyclone impacts by absorbing storm surges and slowing winds. We examine the effects of wetlands on cyclone damage by creating a Bayesian regression model for storm damage as a function of wind speed, economic development in the storm swath, and the area of wetlands in the coastal plain in the storm swath using data from all 54 storms. Our results show that wind speed has a strong positive effect on cyclone damage and that wetland area has a strong negative effect. We estimate a total of AUD 29.6 billion of damage was averted during the 54 storms because of the presence of wetlands with a median of AUD 236 million per storm. This equates to an average of AUD 4203 per year per hectare of wetland, consistent with previous studies. Our results suggest that preserving wetlands is a cost-effective way to minimize cyclone damage while providing numerous other valuable ecosystem services. We estimate that maintaining at least 1.5% of coastal area as wetlands maximizes the averted damage.

旋风造成严重破坏，特别是对沿海地区。在1967年至2016年的50年中，有54场飓风袭击澳大利亚，造成的总损失约为30亿澳元。湿地通过吸收风暴潮和减缓风速来减少旋风的影响。我们使用来自所有54项数据的方法，通过创建贝叶斯回归模型来检验湿地对气旋破坏的影响，该模型是风暴破坏与风速，风暴带经济发展以及风暴带沿海平原湿地面积之间的函数关系。暴风雨。我们的结果表明，风速对旋风造成的破坏具有很强的积极影响，而湿地面积则具有很强的消极影响。我们估计，由于湿地的存在，在54场风暴中共避免了296亿澳元的损失，每场风暴的中位数为2.36亿澳元。这等于以前每公顷湿地每年平均4203澳元，与之前的研究一致。我们的研究结果表明，保护湿地是一种经济有效的方式，可以最大程度地减少旋风的破坏，同时提供许多其他有价值的生态系统服务。我们估计，湿地保持沿海地区至少1.5％，可以最大程度地避免损失。