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Using nature to create coastal resilience is a major priority.
What is Coastal Resilience?
The Earth's coasts are vibrant ecosystems, thriving with natural activity and surrounded by human life. But during an ecological disaster, the coast is at risk of permanent damage.
In an instant, a vicious storm or industrial oil spill can destroy the delicate balance of a coastal zone. Now the coast is suffering and in need of immediate intervention to bring it back from the brink of destruction.
Coastal resilience is the idea that people can assist our struggling coasts and help them bounce back after dangerous events like tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, and human-made disasters. With expert insights and the right resources, coasts can regain their natural vitality.
The Coastal Resilience Program
While the concept of coastal resilience has been around for more than 60 years, The Nature Conservancy formally established the Coastal Resilience program in 2007. The program takes a proactive approach to global coastline threats by formalizing plans for hazard mitigation and examining nature's role in reducing risks to coastal health.
The Conservancy developed coastal resilience processes and tools, including a risk mitigation model, a web mapping tool, and a network of experts in ecological risk management and planning.
The Many Types of Coastal Threats
The Earth’s coasts face a wide range of anthropogenic and natural disasters, including:
- Tsunamis
- Hurricanes
- Tropical storms
- Floods
- Sedimentary buildup
- Erosion
- Rising sea levels
- Contaminations and chemical spills
- Bacterial/algal overgrowth
- Temperature disruption
- Agriculture and aquaculture
- Overfishing
- Population and coastal settlement expansion
- Trash and floating debris
- Munitions and warfare disruption and debris
Each of these threats requires a unique approach, plus an enormous influx of resources and expertise. From the moment the crisis is detected, through the complex remediation process, and onward into the future, a vulnerable coastline needs constant vigilance.
What Our Coastlines Can Teach Us About Resilience
Although our planet's coastlines are constantly at risk of damage, they're also naturally resilient in the face of innumerable threats. A major goal of coastal resilience is to investigate the Earth's natural solutions to coastal maintenance, which can then guide our approach to restoring and preserving coastlines around the world.
Leader of disaster response, recovery, and reconstruction missions to include the Iraq Reconstruction and Joplin Tornado Recovery missions, which included significant healthcare design and construction programs. Retired Colonel with the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), who understands the protocols and relationships necessary to integrate with this key ACF partner.
For example, consider the lush coastal mangrove forest of the Sandy Island Oyster Bay Marine Protected Area at Carriacou, Grenada. Along this swampy coastline, the thick mangrove tree roots twist and tangle themselves directly into the sandy shores, creating a natural barrier to erosion and preventing marine disruption.
The Nature Conservancy and numerous other groups are collaborating on a 10-year coastal resilience project to discover how Grenada's coastal mangroves have continued to thrive despite persistent ecological threats. The project's findings will not only help preserve Grenada's mangroves but also benefit other struggling coastlines around the world.
In addition, the results of this project are being added to a new digital risk and resilience archive called the Conservation Gateway. It's a large and growing knowledge base that will support and inform successful global coastal resiliency projects for decades to come.
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