Southeast Asia is home to a third of coastal mangroves on Earth and an ~600 million people depend directly or indirectly on these valuable ecosystems for food, resources and income. Mangroves also provide efficient natural protection from storm surges and tsunamis for coastal communities. However, coastal regions in SE Asia are suffering the highest rates of mangrove losses across the world.

This project will quantify multi hazards on mangrove ecosystems in two case regions in Malaysia (Matang Mangrove Forest Reserve) and Indonesia (Wonorejo Surabaya Mangrove Zone) to derive solutions that help improve livelihoods for local coastal communities, while maintaining the mangrove forest ecosystem services. Through advancing knowledge on SE Asia coastal mangrove ecosystems services and how this links to the social-psychological health of local communities, this will be able to provide the needed flow of information to preserve ecosystem services that coastal communities rely on. The wider goal of this project is to develop a strategic concept of an operational framework for mangrove forest management that balances improved community welfare and ecosystem services.