How mangroves could be key to future hurricane protection

Bonita Springs is no stranger to the devastation of Hurricane Ian.

And as the conversation about long-term recovery begins, experts at The Water School at Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) took us out by canoe to see what lessons about resiliency can be gleaned from nature—and more specifically from mangroves.

The team has been studying this massive plot of mangroves since Hurricane Irma to get a better understanding of how these trees handle storm surge and how they can offer protection to our shorelines—and the people and buildings along them

[traceykoontz]

So interesting, think maybe we need to pay attention to this

[Dougland]

Trees are great protection for a lot of things including preventing tornadoes from becoming quite so big to begin with. Ask Oklahoma how that works. It's also going to help keep our electric grid less taxed, helps to prevent us being blinded by the sun, everybody wants to park under them if there's the opportunity, to prevent evaporation, from that Sun, out of our soil before it can even reach our water table, prevent soil erosion, allow for better water absorption, trees are Cooling life.

[subicstationditosailor]

How about no building on barrier islands and let them go back wild.

[meandtheithrees]

I can pull up a video from 10 years ago about this Rich yts do not care

[frankcastle]

Oooohhh looking to nature for a solution instead modern advancements and intelligence. What a fxxking idea!!! I seriously hate the popular consensus of acceptable human behaviors😒

[SILSAL]

That's kind of a "duh" moment. If they would have left nature covering these "barrier islands" this would have been a different story after Hurricane Ian.