Healthy Coastal Ecosystems Preparing Your Coast

Fortifying the Coast  With shorelines under assault from rising seas, an acidifying ocean, and increasing human development, creating a plan to combat these forces will be important to maintaining the coasts that help protect humans and nourish life.  Several recent studies have shown that intact coastal wetlands and barrier islands help protect coasts from hurricanes and tsunamis.  No single strategy is going to work to fortify coastal ecosystems, so it's important to learn about the entire spectrum of options.

Ecological Buffer Zones  Ecological buffers are land use practices that can lessen the impact of development on natural areas.  In coastal settings they can be used to create a transition zone between a coastal ecosystem and human activity in which no disturbance is allowed.  They promote good habitat and connectivity, help prevent erosion and stabilize soil, slow down floods and help store floodwater, and filter water to improve water quality.  Buffers can also help sequester carbon and help wetlands migrate inland as sea levels rise.

Ecological Buffer Zones (cont’d)  For example, Rhode Island requires ecological buffers for most new residential, commercial, and industrial development.  Buffer widths range from 15 to 200 ft (4.6 to 61 m), and are required to be 200 ft (61m) around all properties adjacent to designated critical habitat.

Open Space Preservation and Conservation  When it's possible to purchase and create open space, this technique can provide a number of ecosystem-sustaining benefits including habitat protection, reducing runoff from floods and storms, maintaining water quality, promoting groundwater recharge, providing recreational opportunities, sequestering carbon, and promoting evaporative cooling.  What are the best ways to go about creating open space?

Open Space Preservation and Conservation (cont’d)  Zoning, redevelopment restrictions, acquisition, easements, and ecological buffers can all be used to preserve open space.  While some of these techniques cost money, the public expense in the long run may be less than if the land was developed and the county required to provide full services to homes or businesses.

Ecosystem Protection and Maintenance  Keeping ecosystems healthy is a good way to prepare them for changing climate.  Because it's expensive and hard to repair or replace ecosystems, protecting those in good condition from harm is a better strategy.

Ecosystem Protection and Maintenance (cont’d)  There are many ways to increase ecosystem resilience to climate change, including restricting harmful activities; removing shore protection structures or upstream dams to restore natural water flow and sedimentation; taking actions to prevent nitrates and phosphates from getting into water; reducing land-based pollution; modifying fish harvest or use rates; monitoring algal blooms, hypoxia, and coral bleaching and responding when possible; reaching out to and educating those in your community about how they can help; acquiring sensitive land; and designating protected areas.

Ecosystem Protection and Maintenance (cont’d)  As sea levels rise, wetlands must either move inland or accumulate enough sediment to maintain their elevation with respect to mean sea level.  Some coastal wetlands can keep pace with sea level rise by accreting mineral or organic sediments, but other coastal wetlands may "drown" in place due to insufficient sediment supply.

Facilitating Wetland Sediment Accumulation and, if necessary, Wetland Migration  Restoring natural waterways or piping in sediment dredged from navigation channels can help wetlands hold the ocean back.  In some cases, action can be taken to help those wetlands that cannot keep pace with sea level rise move inland.  In others, migration is not possible due to barriers such as roads.  In those cases, the loss of wetlands trapped by coastal development may be compensated for by creating new wetlands in other suitable areas.

Facilitating Wetland Sediment Accumulation and, if necessary, Wetland Migration (cont’d)  In places where it's possible, wetlands can be helped to move inland by prohibiting or removing shore protection structures; setting aside land through easements or purchase; promoting compact community design; and creating ecological buffer zones, setbacks, or rolling easements — that is, rights to use private property like beaches that move inland as shores do, and which prohibit shore protection structures but not development.  In all cases, it's important to understand which coastal ecosystems are likely to be inundated as sea level rises and then take action there before suitable inland locations for wetland migration are too developed.

Ecosystem Restoration, Creation, and Enhancement  Where ecosystems have already been damaged, restoration is an option.  When such projects are undertaken, planners should focus on promoting connections between natural areas (connected habitat corridors are often better for wildlife than pockets of habitat) and on preserving ecosystem functionality and services instead of trying to recreate a specific species composition.

Ecosystem Restoration, Creation, and Enhancement (cont’d)  Such activities could include planting and seeding, modifying watercourses, diverting sediment, filling canals, recontouring topography, dredging and removing fill, or removing shore protection structures or invasive species.  In general, it is easier to create wetlands in open water than at higher elevation.

Examples of Restoration  The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and EPA have begun a project to pipe Mississippi River sediment to 500 acres (2 km2) of marsh to help restore its coastal wetlands.  In southern Maine, trained volunteers are helping to assess the state's beaches by making topographic profiles of 10 important barrier systems.  Coral reef restoration can involve stabilizing and repairing damage, recreating topography, or transplanting coral that has been dislodged, grown in a nursery, or orphaned by coastal development.

Examples of Restoration (cont’d)  Artificial reefs can also be created and may be beneficial in some cases, but they must be carefully planned and located because botched jobs may end up causing more problems than they solve.  Mississippi undertook a good example of artificial reef installation when their Department of Marine Resources Artificial Reef Bureau rebuilt the 90% of artificial reefs destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

Dealing with Invasive Species  Federal law mandates that states develop aquatic invasive species management plans.  Incorporating climate change in these plans is a good way to start tackling both problems.  The most critical aspect is to incorporate a monitoring plan to detect new aquatic invasive species and changes in populations of existing ones.

Dealing with Invasive Species (cont’d)  Massachusetts's Office of Coastal Zone Management published an aquatic Invasive Species Management Plan in 2002 that created a program called the Marine Invader Monitoring and Information Collaborative – a network of trained community groups and citizens – that use standard monitoring techniques to keep tabs on invasives.