A riprap-sill "living shoreline" on Pivers Island in Beaufort, North Carolina, home of the NCCOS Beaufort Lab and the Duke University Marine Lab. Credit: Carolyn Currin, NOAA NCCOS.

NCCOS scientists, in partnership with the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve, are conducting an annual survey of marsh vegetation, elevation, and epifuana at sites around the NCCOS laboratory in Beaufort, North Carolina.

Each site includes a sill-stabilized living shoreline and nearby natural fringing marsh. Previous survey results have demonstrated elevation and vegetation loss at natural marsh shorelines, and less change in vegetation at the sill sites. The annual summer surveys, taken at peak biomass, have also been used to support post-hurricane assessments of fringing marshes.

For more on NCCOS living shoreline work, visit Guidance for the Successful Use of Living Shorelines and see past NCCOS news items about living shorelines and related research.