Global drivers of mangrove loss in protected areas.

Despite increasing efforts and investment in mangrove conservation, mangrove cover continues to decline globally. The extent to which protected area (PA) management effectively prevents mangrove loss globally across differing management objectives and governance types is not well understood. We combined remote sensing data with PA information to identify the extent and the drivers of mangrove loss across PAs with distinct governance types and protection levels based on categories developed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Mangrove loss due to storms and erosion was prevalent across all governance types and most IUCN categories. However, the extent of human-driven loss differed across governance types and IUCN categories. Loss was highest in national government PAs. Private, local, shared arrangement, and subnational government agencies had low human-driven mangrove loss. Human-driven loss was highest in PAs with the highest level of restrictions on human activities (IUCN category I) due to mangrove conversion to areas for commodity production (e.g., aquaculture), whereas PAs that allowed sustainable resource use (e.g., category VI) experienced low levels of human-driven mangrove loss. Because category I PAs with high human-driven loss were primarily governed by national government agencies, conservation outcomes in highly PAs might depend not only on the level of restrictions, but also on the governance type. Mangrove loss across different governance types and IUCN categories varied regionally. Specific governance types and IUCN categories thus seemed more effective in preventing mangrove loss in certain regions. Overall, we found that natural drivers contributed to global mangrove loss across all PAs, whereas human-driven mangrove loss was lowest in PAs with subnational- to local-level governance and PAs with few restrictions on human activities.

Factores globales en la pérdida de manglares en las áreas protegidas Resumen A pesar del incremento en los esfuerzos e inversión de la conservación de los manglares, su cobertura sigue disminuyendo en todo el mundo. No se conoce muy bien el grado al que el manejo de las áreas protegidas (AP) previene eficientemente la pérdida mundial de los manglares en los diferentes objetivos de manejo y tipos de gestión. Combinamos los datos de teledetección con información de las AP para identificar el grado y los factores de la pérdida de manglares en las AP con tipos de gestión claros y niveles de protección basados en las categorías desarrolladas por la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (UICN). La pérdida por tormentas y erosión fue común en todos los tipos de gestión y en la mayoría de las categorías de la UICN. Sin embargo, el grado de pérdida antropogénica difirió entre los tipos de gestión y las categorías de la UICN. La pérdida fue mayor en las AP de gobiernos nacionales. Las agencias privadas, locales, de acuerdo compartido y las gubernamentales subnacionales tuvieron una pérdida antropogénica baja. La pérdida antropogénica fue mayor en la AP con el nivel más alto de restricción para las actividades humanas (categoría I de la UICN) debido a la conversión del manglar en áreas de producción de mercancía (p. ej.: acuacultura), mientras que las AP que permiten el uso sostenible de los recursos (p. ej.: categoría VI) tuvieron niveles bajos de pérdida antropogénica. Ya que las AP de categoría I con mayor pérdida antropogénica están gestionadas principalmente por agencias gubernamentales, puede que los resultados de conservación en las AP con mayor pérdida dependan no sólo del nivel de restricciones sino también del tipo de gestión. La pérdida del manglar en los diferentes tipos de gestión y en las categorías de la UICN varió en cada región. Por lo tanto, los tipos específicos de gestión y las categorías de la UICN parecen ser más eficientes en la prevención de la pérdida de manglares en ciertas regiones. En general, encontramos que los factores naturales contribuyen a la pérdida mundial del manglar en todas las AP, mientras que la pérdida antropogénica fue más baja en las AP con un nivel de subnacional a local de gestión y en las AP con pocas restricciones para la actividad humana.

Three-Dimensional Collagen Membranes Challenging the Gold Standard in Gingival Recession.

Gingival recession is a commonly encountered chief complaint in a dental office, most commonly presenting as pain or sensitivity on intake of food or sometimes just seen as an esthetic concern which may present in a localized or generalized form. Such interest toward dental esthetics has encouraged clinicians to formulate newer minimally invasive surgical techniques which are short but still deliver predictable long-term benefits in restoring the patient's smile. One such method was evaluated in the present short communication where a commercially available, biodegradable, and volume-stable collagen membrane was used to manage gingival recession instead of donor grafts. The clinical parameters which were assessed after a period of 9 months demonstrated an increased width of attached gingiva and overall tissue thickness after surgical intervention. These findings along with successful mean root coverage of the upper left canine would seem to challenge the results obtained while using similar procedures and donor grafts, the age-old gold standard bio-filler. The dawn of esthetic dentistry is here with more emphasis on how physical appearance bolsters confidence and morale among younger individuals. Among the various complaints concerned with patient`s esthetic, periodontal plastic surgery is one of the more challenging procedures. The real obstacle while performing such procedures is achieving complete or partial root coverage over an avascular bed, whereas multiple variables seem to affect the overall clinical outcome.

The impacts of tidal wetland loss and coastal development on storm surge damages to people and property: a Hurricane Ike case-study.

Coastal wetlands protect communities during hurricanes by reducing storm surge flooding and damages. Previous studies have quantified surge reduction benefits of wetlands, but there is less understanding of how the combination of wetland loss and coastal development influences the spatial distribution of flood extents and damages. In this study we integrate a high-resolution 2-D hydrodynamic model with land-use/land-cover change analyses to assess the effects of total wetland loss, decadal wetland loss, and coastal development on storm surge damages in Galveston Bay, Texas. We measure storm surge flood extents from Hurricane Ike for three scenarios: (i) 2008 Baseline; (ii) 2008 No Wetlands, and (iii) 2019 "Present-day H. Ike". We find that during Hurricane Ike in 2008, the total loss of coastal wetlands would have increased damages by a net ~ USD $934 million or 12.8% of baseline damages. For the 2019 Present-day H. Ike scenario, we found very few wetlands were lost between 2008 and 2019. If Hurricane Ike had occurred in 2019, damages would have been higher by ~ $2.52 billion or 34.6%, almost entirely due to increased real estate value and new coastal development. Our findings suggest that, while increase in economic exposure is a key driver of storm surge risks in Galveston Bay, effective wetland conservation continues to reduce these risks.

Minimally Invasive Surgery Periodontal Therapy for the Treatment of Intrabony Periodontal Defects: A Systematic Review.

Background: Minimally invasive therapeutic approaches have become the standard of care for many medical procedures. Conventional periodontal surgical therapies involve extensive tissue reflection, resulting in increased morbidity which stands to reason out that Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) approach for periodontal therapy would result in less morbidity and better esthetics for the patient. Thus, the aim of this review is to assess the clinical efficacy of MIS periodontal therapy compared to conventional access flap surgery for the treatment of intrabony periodontal defects. Materials and Methods: An electronic and manual search was done to identify and collect studies evaluating MIS periodontal therapy for the treatment of intrabony periodontal defects in terms of periodontal probing depth (PPD) reduction, clinical attachment level (CAL) gain, and gingival recession (REC) with a minimum of 6 month follow-up published in English. Six studies which satisfied the inclusion criteria were included for the review and the data extracted. Results: The six included studies contributed to a total of 193 patients who underwent 93 MIS therapies for treating intrabony defects with at least a 6-month follow-up. Clinical evaluation showed a PPD reduction ranging from 3.55 ± 0.88 mm to 5.2 ± 1.6 mm, while CAL gain ranged from 2.82 ± 1.19 mm to 4.5 ± 1.1 mm, while the change in gingival margin level ranged from 0.06 mm to 0.5 mm. Only one study directly compared single flap approach (SFA) (a type of MIS) to double flap approach (papilla preservation flap) which reported PPD reduction and CAL gain to be better in SFA. Conclusion: Even though the above evidence compels us to believe that minimally invasive periodontal surgery is less invasive, less time consuming, and less morbid, the lack of enough studies directly comparing MIS with conventional access flap surgeries suggest that these conclusions are arbitrary. Thus, there is currently an absence of adequate evidence to substantiate the beneficial effect of minimally invasive periodontal surgical approach compared to a conventional access flap surgery for the treatment of intrabony periodontal defects.

Soft tissue re-growth after different crown lengthening techniques among Indian patients.

Patients often report complaining of fractured or decayed teeth with severe morphological deformities. However, all these clinical scenarios require the same level of care and consideration to rehabilitate form, function and esthetics. Some cases have sufficient clinical crown height while others often require an interdisciplinary approach in the form of orthodontic/surgical extrusion or surgical periodontal options. A common factor delaying treatment is soft tissue regrowth after crown lengthening which delays the impression required for final prosthesis. Therefore, it is of interest to compare the prevalence of soft tissue regrowth a week after different crown lengthening techniques including laser gingivectomy, electrocautery gingivectomy, modified Widman flap and apically repositioned. The parameters assessed included 1-week postoperative soft tissue regrowth after crown lengthening, age of patients and gender. It was observed that laser and electrocautery-assisted gingivectomy had a higher rate of soft tissue regrowth as compared to surgical techniques. It was further noted that laser and electrocautery assisted gingivectomy had a higher frequency of soft tissue rebound growth compared to surgical crown lengthening using modified widman flap and apically repositioned flap, which was statistically insignificant. Patients within the age groups of 26-60 years were found to have a higher tendency of soft tissue regrowth, which was found to be clinically and statistically significant (p<0.05).

The Global Flood Protection Benefits of Mangroves.

Coastal flood risks are rising rapidly. We provide high resolution estimates of the economic value of mangroves forests for flood risk reduction every 20 km worldwide. We develop a probabilistic, process-based valuation of the effects of mangroves on averting damages to people and property. We couple spatially-explicit 2-D hydrodynamic analyses with economic models, and find that mangroves provide flood protection benefits exceeding $US 65 billion per year. If mangroves were lost, 15 million more people would be flooded annually across the world. Some of the nations that receive the greatest economic benefits include the USA, China, India and Mexico. Vietnam, India and Bangladesh receive the greatest benefits in terms of people protected. Many (>45) 20-km coastal stretches particularly those near cities receive more than $US 250 million annually in flood protection benefits from mangroves. These results demonstrate the value of mangroves as natural coastal defenses at global, national and local scales, which can inform incentives for mangrove conservation and restoration in development, climate adaptation, disaster risk reduction and insurance.

The Value of Coastal Wetlands for Flood Damage Reduction in the Northeastern USA.

As exposure to coastal hazards increases there is growing interest in nature-based solutions for risk reduction. This study uses high-resolution flood and loss models to quantify the impacts of coastal wetlands in the northeastern USA on (i) regional flood damages by Hurricane Sandy and (ii) local annual flood losses in Barnegat Bay in Ocean County, New Jersey. Using an extensive database of property exposure, the regional study shows that wetlands avoided $625 Million in direct flood damages during Hurricane Sandy. The local study combines these models with a database of synthetic storms in Ocean County and estimates a 16% average reduction in annual flood losses by salt marshes with higher reductions at lower elevations. Together, the studies quantify the risk reduction ecosystem services of marsh wetlands. Measuring these benefits in collaboration with the risk modelling industry is crucial for assessing risk accurately and, where appropriate, aligning conservation and risk reduction goals.

The Effectiveness, Costs and Coastal Protection Benefits of Natural and Nature-Based Defences.

There is great interest in the restoration and conservation of coastal habitats for protection from flooding and erosion. This is evidenced by the growing number of analyses and reviews of the effectiveness of habitats as natural defences and increasing funding world-wide for nature-based defences-i.e. restoration projects aimed at coastal protection; yet, there is no synthetic information on what kinds of projects are effective and cost effective for this purpose. This paper addresses two issues critical for designing restoration projects for coastal protection: (i) a synthesis of the costs and benefits of projects designed for coastal protection (nature-based defences) and (ii) analyses of the effectiveness of coastal habitats (natural defences) in reducing wave heights and the biophysical parameters that influence this effectiveness. We (i) analyse data from sixty-nine field measurements in coastal habitats globally and examine measures of effectiveness of mangroves, salt-marshes, coral reefs and seagrass/kelp beds for wave height reduction; (ii) synthesise the costs and coastal protection benefits of fifty-two nature-based defence projects and; (iii) estimate the benefits of each restoration project by combining information on restoration costs with data from nearby field measurements. The analyses of field measurements show that coastal habitats have significant potential for reducing wave heights that varies by habitat and site. In general, coral reefs and salt-marshes have the highest overall potential. Habitat effectiveness is influenced by: a) the ratios of wave height-to-water depth and habitat width-to-wavelength in coral reefs; and b) the ratio of vegetation height-to-water depth in salt-marshes. The comparison of costs of nature-based defence projects and engineering structures show that salt-marshes and mangroves can be two to five times cheaper than a submerged breakwater for wave heights up to half a metre and, within their limits, become more cost effective at greater depths. Nature-based defence projects also report benefits ranging from reductions in storm damage to reductions in coastal structure costs.

Prioritising Mangrove Ecosystem Services Results in Spatially Variable Management Priorities.

Incorporating the values of the services that ecosystems provide into decision making is becoming increasingly common in nature conservation and resource management policies, both locally and globally. Yet with limited funds for conservation of threatened species and ecosystems there is a desire to identify priority areas where investment efficiently conserves multiple ecosystem services. We mapped four mangrove ecosystems services (coastal protection, fisheries, biodiversity, and carbon storage) across Fiji. Using a cost-effectiveness analysis, we prioritised mangrove areas for each service, where the effectiveness was a function of the benefits provided to the local communities, and the costs were associated with restricting specific uses of mangroves. We demonstrate that, although priority mangrove areas (top 20%) for each service can be managed at relatively low opportunity costs (ranging from 4.5 to 11.3% of overall opportunity costs), prioritising for a single service yields relatively low co-benefits due to limited geographical overlap with priority areas for other services. None-the-less, prioritisation of mangrove areas provides greater overlap of benefits than if sites were selected randomly for most ecosystem services. We discuss deficiencies in the mapping of ecosystems services in data poor regions and how this may impact upon the equity of managing mangroves for particular services across the urban-rural divide in developing countries. Finally we discuss how our maps may aid decision-makers to direct funding for mangrove management from various sources to localities that best meet funding objectives, as well as how this knowledge can aid in creating a national mangrove zoning scheme.