About This Project

I am currently working on an undergraduate thesis at University of Central Florida looking to improve community-based living shoreline projects which are rising in popularity as a way to prevent coastal erosion. I will be determining if cultivation salinity and the use of biodegradable mats affect the transplant success of the grass Spartina alterniflora, widely used in these projects. The end goal is to improve on the design and methodology of projects.

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What is the context of this research?

Living shorelines are projects that involve planting natural vegetation and using oysters as breakwaters as opposed to installing artificial infrastructure that tend to have negative impacts on the natural environment. They have been shown to be successful in mitigating erosion and government agencies are advocating for their use in low wave-energy areas. In the Indian River Lagoon Spartina alterniflora is one of the natural plants transplanted at targeted areas for these projects. These transplants at several sites have shown that survival is variable after a year (10%-93%), and lower survival has been attributed to environmental variables such as dislodgement by wave energy, and transplant shock due to salinity changes from cultivation to estuarine conditions is also suspected.

What is the significance of this project?

We expect to determine whether the use of a biodegradable mesh as a stabilizing substrate is effective in increasing the success of Spartina alterniflora transplantation in the field, and whether propagating them under freshwater or estuarine salinity conditions affects their survival once transplanted in the field. This knowledge will serve to improve salt marsh restoration efforts and inform living shoreline stabilization project guidelines. This knowledge will be ultimately useful for management workers, and benefit the community, especially those that benefit from coastal erosion control.

What are the goals of the project?

The end goal is to improve on the design and methodology of these coastal erosion control projects by increasing the success of Spartina alterniflora to reestablish!