VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. – With hurricane season officially over, researchers in Volusia County are working to make the coastline more resilient before the next time a storm hits.
Hurricanes over the last two years have taken out concrete seawalls, leaving many properties vulnerable as they rebuild.
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The environmental researchers want to make it tougher by using “living seawalls.” The seawalls they are designing may still include some concrete like a traditional seawall, but they would also be buried under sand, plants and other vegetation.
“We are hopeful that with the way of the storm surge, the soils and the plant roots would prevent soil erosion,” researcher Siddharth Parida told News 6.
Prida — a professor at Embry-Riddle — and his colleagues are leading the research team of engineers and scientists also from Bethune-Cookman and UCF who are looking for a solution.
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“We have the concrete structure, the coquina or the riprap, the sand dunes, along with the vegetation with the roots which prevent erosion,” he said, describing the living seawall.
The team was recently awarded a planning grant through the National Science Foundation to develop blueprints and just wrapped up two workshops with New Smyrna Beach and Ponce Inlet residents to get their input and identify the best locations.
“There are some properties where you cannot even build seawalls so for that we plan to have some riprap if we go for properties like that. We might have some riprap, boulders, or coquina rocks to support it at the back,” said Parida.
The other selling point besides protecting property, he said, is they could benefit wildlife.
“We are looking at town property, city property and private property,” he said.
Once the team finishes the blueprint, they’ll apply for another grant to actually build the living seawalls. They hope to officially start building them next fall in several locations in Volusia County.
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