JERSEY CITY SHORELINE DEVELOPMENT – COASTAL HABITAT RESTORATION

Working with Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, EDD is designing estuarine habitat within the tidally influenced Morris Canal Basin, Jersey City, NJ.

The habitats will include enhanced littoral zone substrate for fish habitat, low salt marsh, high salt marsh, and coastal scrub shrub. EDD’s habitat designs reflect the site’s existing soils and sediments, tidal fluctuations, water quality and light regime, and account for climatic and tidal changes that are anticipated over the next several decades.  To accomplish this, EDD programmed spatial diversity within each of the habitat zones, encouraging gradual upland migration of plant and invertebrate communities as sea levels rise.  The design provides a range of native shoreline ecosystems that together provide refuge and foraging grounds for migrating birds and marine species.