Shoreline armoring

Puget Sound’s 2,500 miles of shoreline are among the most valuable and fragile of our natural resources. A dynamic area where land and marine ecosystems meet, the shoreline is constantly changing with the action of wind, waves, tides, and erosion. These same shaping forces are also the reason why people often build bulkheads or other structures to harden the shoreline. Indeed, more than 25% of the shoreline has been armored to protect public and private property, ports and marinas, roads and railways, and other uses.

Shoreline armoring, the practice of constructing bulkheads (also known as seawalls) and rock revetments, disrupts the natural process of erosion, which supplies much of the sand and gravel that forms and maintains our beaches. Erosion also creates habitat for herring, surf smelt, salmon, and many other species in Puget Sound. Over time, shoreline armoring may cause once sandy beaches to become rocky and sediment starved, making them inhospitable to many of our native species.

Source: http://www.psp.wa.gov/vitalsigns/shoreline_armoring.php

Before and after composite view at the site of a 2013 bulkhead-removal project on the shore of Penrose Point State Park in Pierce County. Composite: Kris Symer, PSI; original photos: Kristin Williamson, South Puget Sound Salmon Enhancement Group

OVERVIEW

Hitting a wall: Can we fix Puget Sound’s beaches?

New numbers show progress in the state’s efforts to remove shoreline armoring, but they don’t tell the whole story.

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Former feeder bluff with sediment impounded by armoring. Photo by Hugh Shipman.
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Bulkhead in Puget Sound. Photo by Christopher Dunagan
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Restoration strategies for Puget Sound

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Shoreline armoring along railroad
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An overview of Shoreline armoring in Puget Sound

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Bluff failures contribute sediment to beaches
2/16/2012

Shoreline formation in Puget Sound

Puget Sound has over 4,000 km (2,500 miles) of shorelines, ranging from rocky sea cliffs to coastal bluffs and river deltas. The exchange of water, sediment, and nutrients between the land and sea is fundamental to the formation and maintenance of an array of critical habitat types.