Coastal Change, Ocean Conservation and Resilient Communities

This collection of essays and design case studies explores a range of ideas and best practices for adapting to dynamic waterfront conditions while incorporating nature conservation in urbanized coastal areas.

This collection of essays and design case studies explores a range of ideas and best practices for adapting to dynamic waterfront conditions while incorporating nature conservation in urbanized coastal areas. The editors have curated a selection of works contributed by leading practitioners in the fields of coastal science, community resilience, habitat restoration, sustainable landscape architecture and floodplain management. By highlighting ocean-friendly innovations and strategies being applied in coastal cities today, this book illustrates ways to cohabit with many other species who share the waterfront with us, feed in salt marshes, bury their eggs on sandy beaches, fly south over cities along the Atlantic Flyway, or attach themselves to an oyster reef. This book responds to the need for inventive, practical, and straightforward ways to weather a changing climate while being responsible shoreline stewards.


Marcha Johnson, ASLA is a landscape architect, ecological restorationist, adjunct professor, amateur musician, and watercolor painter. Her professional focus has been designing habitat-rich, multiple purposed in-water infrastructure and restoring ecological functions in damaged landscapes. A Hudson River Foundation fellowship supported her doctoral work on the ecology of post-industrial shorelines and her subsequent 30-year pro bono affiliation with The River Project, an oceanographic field station on the lower Hudson River, has kept her in contact with a network of scientists interested in restoring marine ecosystems. She lives in Brooklyn, NY with her husband Jeff and two cats.
Amanda Bayley is a licensed landscape architect focused on creating designs that are inspired and founded upon a site's role within its natural environment. For the past ten years, she has worked in the private and public sector designing natural areas and green infrastructure throughout New York City. She recently started the landscape design firm, Bayleywick Green with a mission to provide ecologically-rich, native planting designs that can be easily implemented in one's own backyard.