Battered by tides, ice, storms, and human activity, nearly half of New York state's Hudson River shoreline has been “armored up ” by structures such as steel bulkheads or rock revetments. While these structures can protect vulnerable infrastructure in high-energy situations, they also disrupt surrounding habitats. In response, the Hudson River Reserve launched the Sustainable Shorelines project, a long-term, collaborative initiative that is advancing understanding of the engineering, economic, and ecological tradeoffs of using different shoreline management options today—and as the climate shifts and sea levels rise—for generations to come.
About this article
As part of this initiative, members of the project team published this article in the Aquatic Sciences in 2015. A comprehensive analysis of the abundance and composition of vegetation living in riprap revetments on Hudson River shorelines, the authors postulate that the habitat value of these sites could be improved with ecologically-informed design and management.
Strayer, D.L., Kiviat, E., Findlay, S.E.G., Slowik, N., 2016. Vegetation of riprapped revetments along the freshwater tidal Hudson River, New York. Aquat Sci 78, 605-614. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00027-015-0445-0