Living Shorelines and Ecosystem Services
What Have They Done For You Lately?
Living shoreline management practices use strategic placement of plants, stone, sand fill and/or other structural and organic materials to reduce erosion and enhance wetland habitat. Living shorelines do not use structures that separate natural connections between the water, shoreline and uplands, thus providing better habitat area for fish and other animals.
Why should they be used?
Living shoreline treatments can provide more effective benefits than traditional bulkheads and rock revetments. A properly designed living shoreline treatment can preserve the ability of the shoreline to provide important ecological services such as shelter and food for a wide variety of organisms, and reduce the amounts of nutrients, sediments, and other pollutants carried by runoff and groundwater from uplands to rivers and the bay. Natural shorelines can be a source of sand for beaches, can provide flood and erosion buffering for low lying lands, provide recreational and commercial opportunities, and are general visually pleasing features for everyone in the coastal zone.
Environmental managers refer to these benefits as ecosystem services – benefits provided to man by naturally functioning ecosystems. Ecosystem services are things that naturally functioning systems do that are valuable to humans. Generally they can be grouped into four broad categories: production (growing plants and animals); regulation (maintaining the water cycle and atmospheric gas balances, moderating temperatures); habitat (providing shelter and nursery areas); information (aesthetics, recreation).
Where can they be used?
The design of a living shoreline typically involves gradual slopes along the shoreline and into the upland area to reduce the wave energy running up on the shore. It also provides suitable areas for growth of marsh grasses.
Living shoreline designs will not work in all situations. High energy shorelines, such as those along the open ocean or those bordering the Bay, generally have too much wave energy to allow plants to survive in either the intertidal area or the riparian area immediately behind the intertidal zone. Living shorelines also require sufficient horizontal space to establish the low slopes (typically 10% or less) necessary to establish vegetation and dissipate wave energy. This much space is sometimes not available even in very low energy environments if the riparian area is heavily developed.
To find out more information about living shorelines or see design options, visit http://ccrm.vims.edu/livingshorelines/
