Strong, healthy shorelines are essential to New York’s coast. They support resilient communities, help sustain local industries, and provide critical habitat for fish, birds, and other wildlife. They can also offer spaces for people to connect with nature. However, our shorelines are increasingly at risk from intensifying storms, erosion, and rising sea levels. Protecting shorelines doesn’t always require building hard barriers. Unlike bulkheads and other hard structures that separate land from water, living shorelines are designed to keep these ecosystems connected.
Living Shorelines
A living shoreline is a nature-based approach to reducing coastal erosion. Living shorelines use natural materials, like native plants, to stabilize shorelines. In many cases, these techniques can be combined with structural components such as rock, wood, fiber rolls, bagged shell, and concrete shellfish substrate (such as reef balls or oyster castles) to form hybrid living shorelines. By working with natural processes, living shorelines provide a more sustainable alternative to traditional hardened shoreline structures.
Traditional Shorelines vs Living Shorelines
While traditional hardened shoreline structures, like bulkheads or seawalls, can protect shorelines in the short term, they can deteriorate over time. These structures can also increase erosion in front of them and on nearby shorelines by reflecting wave energy. In addition, they disconnect land from the water, reducing or eliminating habitat for coastal species.
Living shorelines offer greater ecological benefits than hardened structures. Planted vegetation helps anchor soil in place to reduce erosion, while maintaining connection between upland and aquatic ecosystems. They are the preferred method for protecting and stabilizing tidal shorelines in New York. The Environmental Conservation Law amendment (S.5186-A/A.5221-A), requires the Department to authorize and encourage the use of nature-based solutions, such as living shorelines over traditional hard structures like bulkheads or seawalls whenever feasible.
Shoreline stabilization techniques are not “one size fits all.” Every project is developed on a case-by-case basis and differ depending on specific conditions at each site. Techniques exist along a spectrum from soft or “green” living shorelines to hard or “gray” structures, with hybrid approaches falling in between. Selecting the most nature-based approach that fits the site conditions provides the greatest ecological benefits while still protecting the shoreline.
Check out our living shoreline guidance document, Living Shoreline Techniques in the Marine District of New York State, to read more about living shoreline techniques, factors to design, permitting requirements, maintenance and monitoring, and other important considerations.
