Two decades ago, a strip of beach outside NOAA's marine lab in Beaufort, North Carolina, was slowly disappearing into the water. According to NOAA's Habitat Blueprint page on the living shoreline at Pivers Island, the sandy beach experienced significant erosion during the late 1990s. At that time, the usual fix for the problem would have been either a seawall or a rock revetment. In March 2000, NOAA researchers planted roughly 500 square meters of local cordgrass, Spartina alterniflora, and placed an oyster shell sill at the waterline instead of a granite sill or seawall. It was a test of whether a living shoreline could perform as well as a hardened one.
A greener alternative to concrete walls
