Living seawalls
ISSUE
Wildlife does make use of manmade structures, but seawalls used as coastal defences have smooth inhospitable surfaces that are difficult to colonise. An ecoengineering concept that is gaining space is deliberately shaping sea walls so that they are inviting and easy for wildlife to inhabit. Textured panels that fit together like honeycomb tiling can be fixed on seawalls to provide cracks, niches and tiny rock pools of assorted sizes, shapes and textures. By increasing the structural complexity from smooth and homogenous to highly varied a greater range of species can move in.