Shore Protection Structures
Oral
Paul Tschirky, PhD, PEng, DCE
Senior Principal
Geosyntec Consultants
Pippa Brashear
SCAPE
Ido Sella
SeArc Ecological Marine Consulting
The Living Breakwaters Project is a unique design of an offshore breakwater system to promote coastal resilience in Tottenville, Staten Island, New York. It combines physical risk reduction through wave attenuation and erosion prevention functions with ecological enhancement and habitat creation as integrated parts of the design. The breakwater design includes reef ridges that extend perpendicular from the trunk and gaps between these ridges, “reef streets”, that mimic natural systems creating diverse and complex reef habitats including special bio-enhancing concrete and tide pool armor units. This paper explores the modeling and design of these unique coastal engineering and ecological structures.