Living breakwaters2/18/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Like the naturally occurring marine breakwaters Orff referred to, these Living Breakwaters are designed to reduce erosion and storm damage by slowing down waves and dissipating their energy. Approximately 2,400 linear feet of near-shore "breakwaters," or partially submerged rubble mound structures, will be built between 790 and 1,800 feet from shore, on a base constructed of approximately 1,100 12-inch Triton ® Marine Mattresses, covering approximately 120,000 square feet of seabed. Orff developed an ingenious system of Living Breakwaters consisting of discrete elements which work together to both reduce storm damage and enhance plant and marine habitat in the Raritan Bay off the coast of Staten Island. for the construction phase, which is scheduled to be completed in 2024. SCAPE is partnering with marine contractors COWI and Weeks Marine, Inc. ![]() Today, her firm, SCAPE Landscape Architecture is the lead contractor on the $107 million project, which broke ground on September 21, 2021. Orff entered and won the competition with her design for the Living Breakwaters. of Housing and Urban Development sponsored a competition for designs to help communities increase resilience against the worst effects of future hurricanes. It caused major flooding in a number of low-lying shoreline communities across the borough. The storm ripped down power lines, utility poles, and trees. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy, one of the most destructive storms ever to hit the United States, swept through Staten Island, claiming 24 lives and causing nearly $20 billion in damage. Because of this, the borough is one of the East Coast’s most vulnerable areas to erosion, flooding, and other hurricane damage. Staten Island sits at the center of the New York Bight, a sharp bend in the shoreline between New Jersey and Long Island, which funnels water directly onto its shore. We’ve spent the past one hundred years dredging out everything for shipping and hardening the edges.” “They acted like breakwaters, absorbing wave energy and slowing the water before it hit the shore. Orff is a landscape architect, MacArthur genius, and designer of the Living Breakwaters Project currently being built in the waters off the coast of the hurricane-prone borough of Staten Island, NY, in lower New York Harbor. were a big part of New York’s coastal-protection system’’ said Karen Orff in The New Yorker Magazine. Whereas “hardening” coastline communities meant building structures against nature, softening builds with it by replicating the functions of natural storm mitigation factors, like “oysters, tide pools, grasses, lots of colorful marine life. Staten Island's Resilient Project for Shoreline Restoration The strategy is called “softening” or green infrastructure. And today’s most forward-thinking scientists and engineers are attempting to follow her lead in devising their solutions to climate-change-related problems. They may protect the local area where they’re built but may increase the damage and erosion in adjacent beaches and dunes by re-directing huge flows of water and debris their way.īut Mother Nature herself has evolved several strategies to tame the ferocity of storm winds and water and increase shoreline resilience. In fact, these rigid structures often cause worse damage because they can interfere with natural water currents and prevent sand from naturally shifting along coastlines. It has become apparent that this approach does not work. The operative idea has been to “harden” coastlines against the ravages of Mother Nature. In the past, the proposed solutions to these problems focused on building higher, thicker, and wider protective structures like seawalls, groins, rip-rap, dikes, dams, and revetments, also known as gray infrastructure. The Problem with Hardening Living Shorelines Now, savvy coastal stewards are embracing enhanced erosion protection - Living Breakwaters created from marine mattresses which provide a friendly environment for oyster habitation while mitigating the impact of rising waters and increasingly harsh waves. Where structures subject to scour are involved, the risk is especially grave as disasters such as bridge collapses can ensue. Scientists are confident sea levels will continue to rise through the end of this century and beyond. Coastal erosion costs roughly $500 million per year for property loss in the U.S. When it comes to the myriad of problems resulting from climate change, it’s hard to overstate the gravity of the problems facing coastal communities around the world. ![]()
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