Living Shorelines

Living Shorelines provide a stable, cost effective, and environmentally beneficial alternative to rip rap and sea walls to stabilize eroding shorelines and failing bulkheads.

Living Shorelines can be used to stabilize eroding banks along waterways utilizing natural and “living” materials such as plants, timber, rock, oyster shell and live oyster reefs. This solution can be applied to any tidal waterway.

Assembled with engineered erosion control matting or bagged oyster shells, with a natural veneer placed over the top that encourages native plant and oyster reef growth, further stabilizing the bank.

This method provides essential habitat for important marine species, such as red drum, spotted sea trout, sheepshead, shrimp, and blue crab.

A major component of Living Shorelines are native plantings, which help stabilize the bank, are tolerant of local weather conditions, require little maintenance once established (which prevents future expense), and create a beautiful landscape. The root systems of these plants create a vegetated buffer that absorbs and disperses wave energy, preventing erosion.

Living shorelines mimic nature in their efficiency at controlling erosion and can last for up to 100 years with almost no maintenance, making them more effective and more cost efficient than rip rap or sea walls in the long term.