A synthesis of living shoreline perspectives

Abstract

The main goal of this summary chapter is to synthesize author perspectives across the contributed chapters, make recommendations on the correct usage of the term living shorelines, and offer guidance for planning in the future. Nature-based approaches are being applied globally, as signified by the breadth of geographic coverage in this book. The author’s institutions and locations of study span the East, Gulf, and West Coasts of the United States, including the states of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, California, Washington, and several national perspectives, including Hawaii; British Columbia in Canada; the Netherlands, as well as perspectives across Europe also including Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom; Sydney Harbor in Australia; and Belize. Living shoreline techniques are very diverse and practices can vary by region, salinity and tidal regime, and degrees of natural and artificial components. Techniques covered in this book include restoring oyster reefs, eelgrass, and mangroves, planting marshes with and without supportive sills (e.g., stone, oyster shell bags, coir logs), incorporating structures such as logs and reef balls, nourishing beaches and dunes with sediment, engineering habitat features into seawalls, and managed realignment. All of these can have a variety of components, such as permitting, land acquisition, design, and monitoring. However, given the diverse representation, there are some shared commonalities that can help inform and direct shoreline management moving forward.