Supporting the Alabama Deepwater Horizon Trustees with living shorelines monitoring services

Point Aux Pins Living Shorelines Monitoring Program

After the disastrous Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010, ecosystems across Alabama sustained direct and indirect injuries. Looking to address the loss of primary and secondary productivity, as well as shoreline loss, the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (ADCNR) constructed a living shoreline project. In 2021, the ADCNR awarded a contract to our team to conduct a five-year post-construction monitoring program for this newly established shoreline site.

We’re providing these services to help the Alabama Deepwater Horizon Trustees implement their monitoring and adaptive management program. Our team partnered with the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (DISL) to support monitoring fieldwork and reduce costs to the client. With DISL sharing local resources and knowledge, we’ve completed three years of epifauna (animals living on the seawater’s surface or attached to submerged objects), infauna (animals living in ocean sediments), and topographic and bathymetric monitoring field work.

So far, data from the first three years of monitoring indicate the living shoreline project is working. By providing additional habitat complexity and reducing wave energy along adjacent shorelines, this vital living shoreline project should continue to result in increased primary and secondary productivity, promote sediment accretion (accumulation), and reduce shoreline erosion.