Home Volume 24 Number 1 Restoration Takes Root: Living Shorelines for Changing Coasts

June 2025 · Volume 24 Number 1

Restoration Takes Root: Living Shorelines for Changing Coasts

Roots at the Water’s Edge (opens in a new tab)

By Ashley Goetz

As erosion threatens treasured places around the Chesapeake Bay, communities are turning to nature-based solutions. Explore how living shorelines are helping to protect coasts and heritage on opposite shores of the Bay.

Seeding Shorelines (opens in a new tab)

By Madeleine Jepsen

Living shoreline plants have a tough job: they must hold down the sandy shoreline with their roots and ease waves with their stems, all while surviving salty water. 

Designing with Nature (opens in a new tab)

By Madeleine Jepsen

Researchers are on a mission to determine which key components make a living shoreline successful at preventing erosion—but first they must gather crucial data. 

A Marsh Grows in Brooklyn (opens in a new tab)

By Ashley Goetz

A living shoreline is under construction in Baltimore City—part of a sweeping project that aims to restore more than 50 acres of habitat along 11 miles of shoreline.