Over three years you can see how the installation of oyster reef breakwaters and shoreline plantings resulted in a larger, stabilized living shoreline. (Driftwood Motel, Jensen Beach, Fla.)
April 21, 2025
By Blair Wickstrom
Twenty years ago, it took direct hits from Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne to get water over my Stuart, Fla., seawall. This past fall, all it took was a big moon and a high tide. Similar “blue sky flooding” is happening even more frequently to our south, in Miami Beach. Flooding, storm surge damage and stressors to our coastal habitat seem to be here to stay.
What to do about it? In my neighborhood, two of my neighbors, in the last year, built higher seawalls, at about $600 a foot. In the City of Miami Beach, they’re not only raising seawalls, they’re building roads and sidewalks on top of roads and sidewalks.
But is building higher walls or pancaking roads on top of roads sustainable? Probably not, and thankfully there are a lot of folks already knee-deep in strategies to mitigate these issues.
The best solutions appear to be more about reengineering our shorelines instead of just raising them. Creating living shorelines and breakwaters which help lessen wave action—instead of building larger armored seawalls, built strictly to fence the water off—also has the benefit of creating fish habitat that can filter and clean the water.
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Success stories are beginning to get out. In Cedar Key following Hurricane Hermine in 2016, the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences (IFAS) Nature Coast Biological Station created a series of living shorelines using natural solutions such as plants and habitat structures to protect the existing shoreline. It worked. Through three direct hurricane hits to Cedar Key in 2023 and 2024, the living shorelines reduced wave energy by up to 20 percent, trapped sediment, reduced shoreline erosion and maintained critical habitat, according to Savanna Barry, Ph.D., Cedar Key Regional Agent for IFAS.
Other successes are out there, as varied in size as they are in composition. The City of Lake Worth and Palm Beach County began a massive two-mile stretch of living shoreline in 2010 and have turned it into a paddler’s paradise. A St. Johns Water Management District project (reported in the Florida Sportsman March 2024 issue) created a 2,360-foot oyster reef anticipated to remove 639 pounds of nitrogen and 48 pounds of phosphorous per year—pollutants that contribute to harmful algal blooms.
Not all living shorelines have to be large projects run by government agencies or non-profits, says Joshua Mills, a consultant to Native Shorelines, a private company specializing in providing solutions for people looking to install living shorelines. “Homeowners experiencing erosion, or who have existing seawalls in need of repair, or simply want to improve fish and oyster habitat along their property, have many options,” Josh said.
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Case in point: A third neighbor of mine, instead of raising their seawall, is planning an alternative with the Marine Resources Council in Palm Bay. They’re looking to build a mangrove buffer in front of their seawall. Laura Wilson, with the Marine Resources Council, said it’s a feasible project and that the larger the tree, the better. As long as they’re just planting trees, no permitting is needed. She told me the 36-inch, three-gallon trees are only $45.
Even if you don’t live on the water, you can become a living shoreline advocate. Encourage your county commissioners to resist approving permits for new hardened seawalls. Recommend they look into living shoreline alternatives to reduce erosion, mitigate blue sky flooding and enhance habitat for coastal fish and wildlife.
