Now you see it, now you don’t:
CICEET projects look at different approaches to erosion control along sheltered coasts

January 6,  2009

DURHAM, N.H. -- As sea levels rise, so does concern over how to protect coastal homes and businesses from erosion. A traditional approach is to build a structure, such as a seawall or bulkhead, to armor property against storm surges and waves. While they might protect the property at hand, such shoreline hardening techniques also can intensify erosion—and its impacts—in other places. Some say that “green” approaches, such as buffers or seagrass restoration, would be a better economic and environmental bet in the long-term. To make decisions that protect people, property, and the environment, coastal communities need science-based information about impacts of different approaches to mitigating shoreline erosion.

As part of CICEET’s Living Coasts Program, two projects in North Carolina and New York are helping to address this need by examining the costs and benefits of different approaches to erosion prevention used in sheltered coastlines. Each project is focused on understanding the environmental and economic tradeoffs that accompany the use of shoreline hardening approaches and alternative erosion control measures. Collaborative by design, these projects engage representatives of local, state, and federal agencies, coastal property owners, academic institutions, and nonprofits focused on climate change and sea level rise. Each is working with key shoreline protection decision makers to develop a knowledge dissemination campaign to deliver research results.

• New York: Led by the Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR), this project focuses on 300 miles of shoreline in the northern Hudson River Estuary. It combines research, analysis, and outreach to better understand the tradeoffs associated with using erosion prevention measures to protect the Hudson River’s sheltered coastlines from the impacts of rising sea levels, increased storm surges, and waves. Integrated closely with regional climate change response and ecosystem protection initiatives, this project is comparing the physical attributes and habitat functions of selected biota in six types of shoreline. Investigators will quantify long-term costs and impacts associated with vegetative approaches, hard engineered structures, and land management measures, such as land regulation, planning measures, or land acquisition.
  
  
• North Carolina: Led by the North Carolina NERR and NOAA’s Center for Coastal Fisheries and Habitat Research this project focuses on three regions along North Carolina’s coast. Investigators are quantifying ecosystem service tradeoffs resulting from habitat alteration, and designing demonstration projects based on alternative shoreline stabilization techniques. During the two-year project, they will develop an approach to evaluate ecological and socioeconomic costs and benefits of shoreline erosion and protection alternatives. This project will complement existing work to investigate natural and stabilized estuarine shorelines, forecast the response of estuarine intertidal habitats to sea level rise, and develop a predictive model of shoreline erosion for a large military base.