Biloxi Marsh in St. Bernard Parish in southeast Louisiana helps protect coastal communities from hurricanes, saltwater intrusion, flooding and other coastal hazards. Louisiana’s Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority recognizes the importance of retaining as much land as possible in this region to protect the remaining saltmarsh. These ideas led to the creation of the longest continuous living shoreline complex in Louisiana at 17.7 km. Living shorelines combine human-made structures with natural processes that ideally result in a perpetually accreting breakwater with all of the benefits that comparable naturally occurring habitats provide.

In 2024, RNR professors Drs. Megan La Peyre, with the U.S. Geological Survey Coop Unit, and Jeffrey Plumlee were awarded a contract to monitor the effectiveness of the Biloxi Marsh living shoreline. These areas are being studied for their ability to recruit and grow oysters which naturally build reefs. This can keep up with rising sea levels and sinking structures as they naturally subside, and they are suitable as nursery and feeding habitats for a diversity of fishes and invertebrates. This study involves research activities by recent RNR graduate Owen Henderson (B.S., 2023) and two graduate students, Zach Kassuba and Emily Robicheaux.

One of Kassuba’s thesis chapters is focused on using novel high-resolution sonar to measure the density and population dynamics of oysters on the structures, data that are often challenging to measure visually due to the low clarity of the water.

Robicheaux’s component focuses on the diversity and abundance of fishes and invertebrates that use the living shoreline as habitat. She is sampling organisms with a variety of fishery-independent gears to capture, measure and weigh fish and invertebrates of all shapes and sizes, from small grass shrimp to bull sharks.

This work is critical to understanding how these types of nature-based solutions can effectively combat shoreline erosion and sea-level rise in Louisiana which, by some estimates, is losing almost a football-field sized area of marsh every 30 minutes.

Graduate students Emily Hura, left, and Emily Robicheaux pull gillnets from the Biloxi Marsh living shoreline structure.

Graduate student Zach Kassuba, from left, takes oyster count data with the high-resolution sonar while technician Owen Henderson and graduate student Emily Robicheaux hold the sonar and the quadrat.