Guam and CNMI Coral Reefs and Coastal Hazard Risk Reduction
Detailed Description
Rigorously Valuing the Role of Guam’s Coral Reefs and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands’s Coral Reefs in Coastal Hazard Risk Reduction
Estimated Annual Benefits
Maps of Guam and the the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands showing the distribution of the value of averted direct building damages, indirect economic activity losses, and population annually protected from flooding by coral reefs. Results at 10 m2 resolution are aggregated into 2-km coastal sections.
Key Data
Annual value of protection provided by coral reefs from flooding
- Buildings: Saipan: $5,003,426, Tinian- $672,257, Guam- $6,839,500
- Economic activity: Saipan: $8,047,866, Tinian- $145,767, Guam- $10,155,754
Annual population protected by coral reefs
- Number of people: Saipan: 396, Tinian- 7, Guam- 107
Storlazzi, C.D., Reguero, B.G., Cole, A.D., Lowe, E., Shope, J.B., Gibbs, A.E., Nickel, B.A., McCall, R.T., van Dongeren, A.R., Beck, M.W., 2019, Rigorously valuing the role of U.S. coral reefs in coastal hazard risk reduction: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2019–1027.
The USGS open file report can be found at: https://doi.org/10.3133/ofr2019102
Sources/Usage
Public Domain.
The Value of U.S. Coral Reefs for Risk Reduction
Discover the social and economic benefits provided by U.S. reefs
Rigorously valuing the role of U.S. coral reefs in coastal hazard risk reduction
U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2019–1027
U.S. Geological Survey data release
Projected flooding extents and depths based on 10-, 50-, 100-, and 500-year wave-energy return periods, with and without coral reefs, for the States of Hawaii and Florida, the Territories of Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands