NORFOLK, Va. — A new comprehensive guide is now available to help ensure that living shoreline projects in Virginia can adapt to and recover from coastal hazards, such as sea level rise, coastal storms, and erosion.
Titled Designing Living Shorelines for Sea Level Rise in Virginia: A Resource for Practitioners, the guide was developed by a Living Shoreline Design Work Group convened by Wetlands Watch with support from the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program. The resource provides a list of best practices for designing adaptive living shorelines and features real-world case studies of permitted projects.
The guide also outlines recent amendments to Virginia’s Tidal Wetlands Act and related guidelines, offering insights into regulatory changes affecting shoreline protection. Additionally, it details the data required for designing and permitting shoreline erosion control practices.
Living shorelines use natural materials, such as marsh grasses, sand, and oyster shells, to stabilize coastal areas while preserving habitat and water quality. As sea level rise and severe weather events threaten Virginia’s coastline, officials and environmental groups have increasingly promoted these nature-based solutions as an alternative to bulkheads and seawalls.
This resource provides essential guidance for engineers, contractors, and property owners to ensure that living shorelines remain effective in the face of changing coastal conditions.
The guide is available online for practitioners seeking to incorporate resilient shoreline strategies into their projects.
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Then why is the city of Virginia Beach getting ready to destroy 12 acres of maritime for us with title wetlands at the cost of over $12 million to it citizens? The land was donated to the city on the promise that it would be kept a maritime forest with title wetlands. There are wetland credits available to purchase and have been available since December that would cost less than the $12 million of the citizens tax money. The destruction of 12 acres will give less than the amount of credits we would gain by purchasing wetland credits that are available. So it would save us over half of the money and provide us with more wetland credits for the city. also the plan is for all of the urban runoff to go directly into the Lynnhaven River. No citizen wants this done especially any neighbors that live directly next to pleasure house point. The area already floods when there is a storm surge and the only thing that will protect their property properties from flooding is having that maritime forest in the land 4 feet higher than the water level. The cities plan is to remove the land 4 feet down to water level and bring it closer to the residence properties. This will do nothing during any storm surge and it does not create any type of barrier or protection for that urban development. every study shown proves that a maritime for us with title wetlands is what is needed as a buffer between a coastal waterway and urban development. The city also has nothing in its plan to capture any of the debris, plastic waste, or chemicals that will be dumped into our coastal waterway. Also it is destroying our tree canopy, habitat to several endangered species, and habitat and nests to several bald eagles. The destruction is supposed to start soon and we need all the help we can get.
Please help us save pleasure house POINTE.