Quantifying the geomorphic, ecological, and socioeconomic impacts of shoreline management strategies: a multi-disciplinary approach Grant uri icon

abstract

  • North Carolina's estuarine shoreline habitats, such as salt marshes, oyster reefs, and seagrass beds, provide numerous functions and services, yet are increasingly threatened by development and climate change. One of the greatest challenges for managing estuarine shoreline habitats is that drivers of habitat loss and degradation often occur over multiple temporal and spatial scales. For example, erosion of a habitat can occur locally and quickly during a single storm event or slowly (decades) across an entire region as a result of ambient wave energy. This project seeks to quantify the spatial and temporal changes in nearshore habitats that occur as a result of various estuarine shoreline management strategies (particularly, armored, soft, and natural shorelines). This project also seeks to understand variations in shoreline management strategies utilized between homeowners and public shorelines. Utilizing a multidisciplinary approach, through homeowner surveys, citizen science, geographic information systems (GIS) science, and emerging low-cost remote sensing technologies, the project seeks to: 1) utilize geospatial analysis to assess long-term patterns of shoreline change; 2) garner information relating to socioeconomic factors surrounding homeowner perceptions of shoreline management approaches; and, 3) test a novel, citizen science-based approach to shoreline monitoring. This research also addresses the need for more quantitative evidence of temporal and spatial changes in shoreline habitats, such as salt marshes, as a result of management decisions. Resilience of the North Carolina estuarine ecosystem is dependent upon coastal management decisions made now. The data from this study will directly inform future coastal management, serve as a mechanism to educate homeowners on shoreline conservation and management strategies, and enable the development of long-term, cost-effective shoreline monitoring procedures that can be scaled up to state or region levels.

date/time interval

  • February 2019 - August 2020