“Transitioning from “Grey to Green”: Nature-Based Solution Seawall for Coastal Protection” provides a model nature-based solution seawall that governments could construct where rising sea levels are threatening their coastal population. It is an environmentally, ecologically sound, and culturally responsible option to construct a nature-based solution seawall and not dislocate the community. In this process, we use nature to deal with a problem caused by nature itself.
Coastal communities globally will continue to be affected by climate-related factors as causal factors are beyond their control. With rising sea levels, shorelines are eroding, and villages, houses, burial grounds, arable land, and other infrastructures are gradually being washed away.
Relocating to higher ground is an option for sites well below sea level, but it has obvious challenges and associated problems. The option is costly and not in the communities’ best interest, given that relocation means moving houses and people and breaking away from the ancestral grounds and their heritage in some locations.
Instead, nature-based solution seawalls can be constructed, given their positive effect on environmental
rehabilitation and the low financial costs of their construction. Seawalls and other shoreline restoration techniques are underway in the US.
European Journal of Engineering and Technology Research Vol 9 | Issue 4 | July 2024
Transitioning from Grey to Green
About the Authors: Project Manager Alvin Reddy is with SCS Field Services and coauthored the paper with Mahendra Reddy and Shonal Singh, Ministry of Waterways, Fiji.
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