LIVING SHORELINE

A living shoreline is a suite of shoreline erosion control techniques that combine natural coastal habitats with a natural or engineered means of breaking up a waves energy. Unlike traditional erosion control structures, such as bulkheads or seawalls that focus on deflecting wave energy away from a site and may actually increase erosion, a living shoreline reduces energy onsite and also allows for the continuation of important natural processes that maintain the health of the broader coastal system.  Additionally, living shorelines can and do maintain coastal habitat that would be otherwise lost when traditional coastal management approaches are utilized.  While primarily implemented as an erosion control feature, when properly designed, a living shoreline can provide some reduction in wave energy during low level storm surge events.

A Living Shoreline will:

• Reduce erosion
• Improve marine habitat and spawning areas
• Provide attractive natural appearance
• Improve water quality
• Filter stormwater runoff and groundwater

By maintaining a vegetated coastal edge with necessary tidal exchange, a living shoreline preserves natural coastal processes that not only maintain coastal habitats, but can serve to protect and enhance nursery and critical feeding habitats for coastal and estuarine species. Living shorelines can also improve local water quality, in particular reducing nitrogen and phosphorous loading in nearshore waters, by filtering run-off from upland areas and trapping nutrient rich soils in the shoreline system.

Maintenance of these coastal habitats is important because numerous commercially and recreationally valuable fish species rely on coastal and estuarine habitats for spawning and juvenile life stages. It also allows for a more natural aesthetic look to shoreline and coastal areas, preserving the viewshed and part of the coastal living experience. Additionally, a living shoreline allows property owners or the general public the potential to continue to have an entry point to coastal environments and waterways.