The Silent Threat to Our Coasts:

Studying Shoreline Armoring on

US Coastlines

Riordan Correll-Brown
River Hill High School
 Background

40% of Americans live in coastal

counties.

Coastal residents and their properties

constantly face risks due to storm
surge, flooding, and coastal erosion.

These risks are growing more severe

with climate change.

Photo credit: R.Gittman

Background
Shoreline armoring is the anthropogenic
modification of shorelines to protect against
erosion and mitigate storm surges using
structures such as bulkheads, seawalls, and rip
rap.

Armoring can have negative environmental

impacts, reducing marine biodiversity and species
abundance on shorelines.

Armored structures often lack resilience,

breaking down over time due to wear and
Photo credit: R.Gittman
disturbances.
Background ● Assessing cumulative
ecological impacts of
shoreline hardening requires
effective monitoring of
shoreline modification
● Currently unable to track the
rate of hardening over time at
a national scale
● Coastal planners need data
to make informed decisions
concerning shoreline
Photo credit: R.Gittman
armoring
Research Question

How much of the continental US shoreline has been anthropogenically

modified?

Goals:

To estimate the number of kilometers of armored shoreline in the US and per

state, and the most common types of armoring in each state.

To compare my estimates to past estimates of shoreline armoring to determine

the rate of shoreline hardening in the US.
Methods

● The study utilized shoreline

data from NOAA’s
Environmental Sensitivity
Index (ESI) maps,
● The most recent NOAA data
from each coastal state in
the “lower 48” was used.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Methods
● The shoreline data was uploaded to the
mapping software ArcGIS and separated
by state

● Shoreline lengths were calculated using

the “Calculate Geometry” tool

● Shoreline segments with one or more

occurrences of armoring were
hierarchically selected and their lengths
were summed by state. Photo credit: R.Correll-Brown
An ESI shoreline map for the Chesapeake Bay
Results

Approximately 28,379 km or 10% of total 277,334 km of

surveyed shoreline in the lower 48 states have been
anthropogenically modified.

The most common types of armoring are “sheltered, solid

man-made structures” such as seawalls, bulkheads, and
piers.
State Armoring Totals

State Km Armored % of Total

Massachusetts 808 12.81% California 1344 21.394%

New Hampshire 53 8.37% Delaware 334 9.10%

New Jersey 616 36.47% Mississippi 367 12.10%

New York 1880 29.94% Pennsylvania 179 53.65%

North Carolina 1811 8.47% Texas 1886 19.62%

Oregon 424 10.83% Virginia 2247 10.92%

Rhode Island 322 22.06% Washington 1136.41 16.27%

Alabama 356 13.66%

South Carolina 339 2.46%
Most Common Armoring Types
Sheltered Riprap Sheltered Manmade Exposed Riprap (6B) Exposed Manmade
structures (8B) structures

Florida Louisiana North Carolina

Connecticut Maine
Georgia New Hampshire
Maryland Oregon
Massachusetts Washington
New Jersey
New York
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Virginia
Delaware
Connecticut
Challenges to Tracking Shoreline Change

It was found to be problematic to compare past and present amounts of

armoring because newer ESI shoreline data was not consistent with
shoreline data from older ESI maps due to

● An increase in the amount of shoreline surveyed (farther upstream)

in the updated maps.
● Increased resolution of shoreline profile and contours in the updated
maps.
Conclusions

● Established an updated baseline for shoreline armoring in the US, which

allows us to educate stakeholders, and better assess social and ecological
impacts of armoring.
● Showed that shoreline armoring is an issue that heavily impacts a
significant percentage our coastlines.
● Determined that there is a need to standardize shoreline mapping efforts to
allow for tracking of shoreline change over time.
○ Without the ability to effectively monitor shoreline hardening, we cannot assess its
cumulative ecological impact and work to reduce shoreline armoring.
Acknowledgments

Thank you to Dr. Rachel Gittman and Mary Jane Sasser for their tireless support
of this project!

Also thanks to:

● Jessie Norriss and Upstream Tech

● Emory Wellman
● Dr. Devon Eulie
● Dr. Shannon Cunniff
● Shawn Rovansek
● NOAA Office of Response and Restoration
Works cited

Nicholls, RJ, Hoozemans, FM, & Marchand, M (1999). Increasing flood risk and wetland losses due to global sea-level rise:
regional and global analyses. Global Environmental Change, 9(1)

J.H. Hartig, M.A. Zarull, & A. Cook. (2011). Soft shoreline engineering survey of ecological effectiveness.Ecological
Engineering, 37

Gittman, R.K. Et at (2015). Engineering away our natural Defenses: An analysis of shoreline armoring in the US. Frontiers
in Ecology and the Environment, 13(6).

NOAA (2013) National Coastal Population Report