Tsunami damage reduction performance of a mangrove forest in Banda Aceh, Indonesia inferred from field data and a numerical model

Since the 26 December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the role of mangrove forests as natural defenses protecting coastal communities from tsunami disaster has been highlighted. However, some mangrove forests were destroyed by that tsunami. They are expected to have lost their protective functions. In this study, we develop a fragility function to assess the mangrove trees' vulnerability, expressed as the damage probability of mangrove trees, based on field surveys and numerical modeling of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Based on the fragility function, we reconstruct a numerical model of tsunami inundation including the performance of mangrove forests in terms of reducing tsunami damage. The model reveals that a 10 year old mangrove forest in a 500 m wide area can reduce a tsunami's hydrodynamic force by approximately 70% for an incident wave of 3.0 m inundation depth and a wave period of 40 min at the shoreline. The model also shows, for a tsunami inundation depth of greater than 4 m, that a 10 year old mangrove forest would be mostly destroyed and that it would lose its force reduction capacity. Moreover, approximately 80% of a 30 year old mangrove forest would survive a 5 m tsunami and absorb 50% of the tsunami's hydrodynamic force.