For shores with relatively calm waters, the best bet is often a water-absorbing salt marsh, possibly fortified with sill-like ledges made of rocks, oyster shell bags, or “logs” made of coconut fiber.

The components of a living shoreline are site-specific. 'The wall is just a wall and it's not providing any habitat.'Ī better approach, Gittman says, is to create so-called “living shorelines.” The term encompasses various “soft” shore-protecting techniques and technologies involving mostly natural materials. 'You end up losing the structural complexity that organisms like to use,' Gittman says. These barriers compromise delicate coastal habitats and reduce biodiversity. Then there is the environmental toll of armored shorelines.

This can happen, for example, when wave action erodes soil or sand at the base of a wall and causes it to collapse. That means these properties will experience wave energies even greater than would be experienced in the absence of seawalls.Īnd even carefully constructed barriers are prone to failure. So if waves batter a seawall along one coastal property, their energy will be redirected to neighboring properties. But there are big problems with these bulwarks.įor one thing, instead of damping wave energy, these structures simply deflect it to adjacent areas.

I bet you can't stay soft