If a hurricane-addled storm surge is barreling toward your coastline, there aren’t many ways to stop it. There are no ocean-sized sump pumps. Giant, Squarepants-style coastal sponges don’t exist either.

Except they kind of do. Wetlands and marshes—the water-permeated thickets of grass and muck that sit on the edge of much of the Atlantic coast—can slow the extra sea water and absorb the surge’s excess energy.

They are, in their way, continental sponges. And a new study finds that, when a flood comes, they can prevent hundreds of millions in damages.

Wetlands prevented more than half a billion of dollars in direct damages across the mid-Atlantic United States during Hurricane Sandy, a study published this week in Scientific Reports has found. The research is the first to use the insurance industry’s own simulations to calculate the economic benefits of conserving wetlands.

Read the source article at The Atlantic