Ecologically based approach to coastal defence design and planning

Sustainability of coastal areas requires the development of a standard procedure for the selection of equitable defence solutions and the design optimization of existing defences in order to minimize the impact on the environment and maximize positive effects such as species biodiversity and structure colonization. The aim of this paper is to propose a combined method, based on numerical simulations and on collection of ecological data in the field, to provide indications for an environmental friendly construction of breakwaters. This method is applied and tested against the case study of Elmer, UK, where information on existing species and their abundance related to hydrodynamic effects induced by the breakwaters.