To keep up with how the shoreline stabilization industry is evolving, a team of shoreline restoration specialists during its recent meeting invited a handful of companies to talk about their proprietary techniques to build the alternative for hardened bulkheads and seawalls.
Living shorelines are made of materials such as salt marshes, sand, rock or oysters, and are a natural barrier for estuaries, bays, tributaries and other sheltered shorelines.
They protect shorelines from erosion, provide habitat for fish and other living resources, improve water quality and store nutrients, increase stability over time, can outperform hardened shorelines during a storm, and attract natural wildlife, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Dr. Lexia Weaver, coastal scientist for the North Carolina Coastal Federation, and Jimmy Johnson with Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership, an Environmental Protection Agency-funded program based in the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, co-chair the North Carolina Living Shorelines Steering Committee made up of scientists, federal and state agencies, and other invested organizations that work to identify and bring together efforts focused on promoting and implementing living shorelines.
