ABSTRACT

Shoreline erosion and storm tide inundation increasingly threaten coastal populations, infrastructure and economies. Hard infrastructure, known as gray infrastructure (e.g. concrete seawalls), has commonly been used to protect coastal communities but is expensive to build, maintain, and deteriorates coastal vegetation. Green infrastructure (e.g. restored or conserved mangrove and marsh ecosystems) delivers nature-based coastal protection but in comparatively lower density coastal areas. Nowadays a more popularized approach to coastal protection is hybrid eco-engineering. In this study, we discuss lessons-learnt on how the hybridization of engineered structures and wetland restoration practices compared with traditional gray and green approaches. We contrast hybrid applications in mangrove and tidal marsh areas in the UK and south-east Asia. The majority (70%) of successful hybrid infrastructure cases were underpinned by understanding of ecological and hydrological changes in response to infrastructure and involved a wide range of stakeholders. In terms of construction and maintenance cost, limited data suggested that hybrid infrastructure may be more cost effective than gray infrastructure, but more expensive than green; however, data were very limited and therefore we suggest the need for further cost-benefit analyses to inform a robust comparison. Development of new technologies should see growing efficacy of future hybrid infrastructure in mitigating coastal flood risks.

摘要

海岸线侵蚀和风暴潮淹没对沿海人口、基础设施和经济的威胁越来越大。硬基础设施，被称为灰色基础设施（例如混凝土海堤），通常用于保护沿海社区，但建造、维护和破坏沿海植被的成本很高。绿色基础设施（例如. 恢复或保护的红树林和沼泽生态系统）提供基于自然的海岸保护，但在密度相对较低的沿海地区。如今，一种更流行的海岸保护方法是混合生态工程。在这项研究中，我们讨论了工程结构和湿地恢复实践与传统灰色和绿色方法相结合的经验教训。我们对比了英国和东南亚红树林和潮汐沼泽地区的混合应用。大多数（70%）成功的混合基础设施案例都基于对基础设施响应的生态和水文变化的理解，并涉及广泛的利益相关者。在建设和维护成本方面，有限的数据表明，混合基础设施可能比灰色基础设施更具成本效益，但比绿色基础设施更昂贵；然而，数据非常有限，因此我们建议需要进行进一步的成本效益分析来进行有力的比较。新技术的发展应该会看到未来混合基础设施在减轻沿海洪水风险方面的效率越来越高。