We conjecture that the health of a coastal mangrove forest is
determined by its effectiveness to attenuate wave energy,
which is obviously related to its width. The purpose of this
section is to achieve insight into the wave transformation in the
mangrove forest and suggest a rough estimation for the
necessary distance from the sea dike to the mangrove forests
along the southern coast of Vietnam in relation to the wave
attenuation. To further our insights into the efficiency of
mangrove to attenuate wave energy as a function of their width
we have applied a state-of-the-art wave propagation model that
includes both short and long waves. On the basis of bathymetric maps available at Delft University of Technology’s map
room, Soc Trang coast is chosen to present a typical coastline
profile in the southern coast of Vietnam. The foreshore of the
southern coast of Vietnam has a quite gentle slope (1/30,000).
The water depth reaches 30 m at a distance of about 100 km
offshore. Along this coast, mangroves are found to display a
healthy development when a magnitude order of more than
1000-m width is present.