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• 10 Questions on Vietnamese Fishing Communities
• Dr. Sharon Walker Wins Highest Honor from NMEA
• NOAA Funding to Support Bottlenose Dolphin Research
• Living Shorelines Workshop Scheduled for November
• Research Prioritization Workshops to be Held Throughout the Gulf of Mexico Region
• Featured Publication
• From the Director

Sea Briefs is a report on the results of the Mississippi-Alabama Sea Grant Consortium.

Editor: Valerie Winn

This newsletter is available in PDF format from:
masgc.org/seabriefs

MASGC supports applied, interdisciplinary marine science research, education and outreach efforts to foster the sustainable development and management of the Mississippi and Alabama coasts and nearshore ecosystems of the Gulf of Mexico

Mississippi-Alabama
Sea Grant Consortium
703 East Beach Drive
Ocean Springs, MS 39564
Phone: 228-818-8840
E-mail: seabriefs@masgc.org
MASGP 07-011-02

Living Shorelines Workshop Scheduled for November

A Living Shorelines Workshop will be held from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Nov. 29 at the 5 Rivers Delta Resource Center in Spanish Fort, Ala.

Topics of discussion will include the Living Shorelines Initiative, current research, a permitting overview, panel discussions on permitting living shorelines, funding opportunities and cost, design and maintenance of shoreline alternatives.

Living shorelines use plants and other natural materials to control shoreline erosion and preserve salt marshes, submerged aquatic vegetation, wetlands and beaches that help to buffer the land during storm events and control water quality.

The current trend in Alabama and Mississippi is to build seawalls or bulkheads to protect coastal properties. In Mobile Bay alone, more than 30 percent of the property owners have built some sort of hard structure for shoreline. The current prediction is that within the next 5 to 10 years, 50 percent of the bay will have some type of hard structural protection. With fisheries declining in the Gulf of Mexico because of water pollution, loss of habitat and over-fishing, living shorelines allow people to develop land in more environmentally sustainable ways.

Hard structures, such as bulkheads and seawalls, reduce habitat through loss of the land and water interface. They also reflect waves to areas that are not protected and scour the land underneath the seawall making the water body deeper and the edge steeper.

Participants at the workshop will learn about ways to protect shorelines while having less impact on the environment. Marine contractors, coastal planners and managers and property owners may want to attend the workshop.

The workshop is sponsored by MASGC, Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Mississippi State University, Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Mobile Bay National Estuary Program and Florida Sea Grant.

The registration fee is $15 and lunch is included. To register, contact Kay Bruening at (228) 818-8842 or kay.bruening@usm.edu.

Photo credit: NOAA Ocean and Coastal Resource Management