CoastalResilience

Step 4: Restore Habitats that Provide Protection

Healthy, properly functioning natural shorelines and tidal marshes provide important ecosystem services and increased shoreline protection and erosion control. Investing in restoration of natural coastal ecosystems may also benefit communities by mitigating storm damage. Despite the Clean Water Act’s effectiveness in protecting tidal marshes, ecological functions in many systems have become degraded as the result of historic alterations in tidal hydrology. Such changes resulted most commonly from tide gates, undersized culverts associated with road and rail causeways, and impoundments for wildlife management and tidal mills. Diked/drained wetlands, associated with tide-gated mosquito or flood control projects, suffer multiple ecological impacts, including loss of function for nutrient processing, nursery habitat, conversion to brackish monoculture, and a reduction in the use of the area by invertebrates. Restoration of natural tidal flows to these areas, together with the reintroduction of native vegetation, can return many of the ecosystem services they once provided.

Native oyster reef restoration along shorelines is another way to reduce wave energy and erosion and possibly help build up the shoreline. The reefs create new shallow-water habitats and semi-sheltered shorelines, which can then be planted with appropriate vegetation. In addition to protecting shorelines, oysters are filter feeders that improve water quality and clarity by filtering water, and provide a food source for many species of fish, birds and invertebrates.

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