Building seawalls to sustain intertidal biodiversity in altered and urbanized estuaries

澳大利亚沿海地区城市化的加剧是不可避免的。挑战是在维持生物多样性的同时实现理想的发展水平。沿海发展增加了海岸线的数量，这些海岸线从自然栖息地变成了人工栖息地。海堤对潮间带生物多样性有负面影响。然而，有几种筑墙的方法可以减少这些影响。本项目将探索不同类型的海堤影响潮间带生物多样性的方式，利用现有的地点和计划的海堤建设和修复方案作为实验。这将确保研究提出的建议在经济和结构上是合理的，在环境上也是有效的。

Increased urbanization along Australia's coasts is inevitable. The challenge is to achieve desired levels of development, while sustaining biodiversity. Coastal development increases the amount of shoreline which is altered from natural to built habitat. Seawalls have documented negative effects on intertidal biodiversity. There are, however, options in ways walls can be built, which may reduce these impacts. This project will explore the ways that different types of seawalls affects intertidal biodiversity, using existing sites and planned programmes of construction and repair of seawalls as experiments. This will ensure that recommendations from the research are economically and structurally sound, as well as environmentally valid.