A key barrier experienced by coastal practitioners in implementing living shorelines is a lack of demonstration sites. Where there are good examples, the outcomes of these projects are often not widely shared. Without knowledge transfer, a delivered living shoreline project, whether successful or not, cannot inform future projects.

The Living Shorelines Australia Database was created to share knowledge and build capacity among coastal practitioners for living shoreline implementation.

Projects in the database include the restoration of coastal habitats for the primary or secondary objective of coastal hazard risk reduction. Projects that do not have a coastal protection objective (e.g., habitat recovery only) are not included.

Key facts about the living shoreline as well as project outcomes are included in the database.

Information was sourced through the scientific literature, reports, websites, media and from the coastal practitioners that delivered the projects. The outcome of the project was based on monitoring data or the observations of coastal practitioners.

The database contains examples of living shoreline projects that are considered successful and unsuccessful.

Unsuccessful projects are just as important to share and learn from as those considered successful. For example, beach nourishment projects requiring high-frequency nourishment were often not considered successful living shorelines by coastal practitioners. In contrast, projects that recovered a coastal habitat and provided erosion control were considered successful.

You can contribute to this national network on living shorelines by adding your projects to the database.

Contact the research team to add your project to the database. The website updates daily with new projects added.