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Ecological and physical performance data for plantings and offshore breakwaters at Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, Alabama

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About this resource

Degradation of coastal habitats has led to major declines in oyster reefs and coastal wetlands. Coastal restoration efforts are critical to restoring these habitats, but they often include little to no monitoring and evaluation of success. Without monitoring and evaluation, it is difficult to make comparisons across restoration designs. This reality, in combination with limited “best practices ” resources, significantly hinders coastal restoration projects. To address this need, a 2015-2018 collaborative research project measured the performance of different coastal restoration designs at the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve.

This data was gathered from 2017-2019 along the eastern shore of Bon Secour Bay, located in the southeast corner of Mobile Bay, in the area known as the "Swift Tract." Swift Tract is a naturally eroding shoreline within the Weeks Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve. The team gathered vegetation, fish, and environmental data to compare plots planted with nursery-grown plugs to plots made of natural marsh, both with and without offshore breakwaters.

The dataset description provides more detail about the datasets generated by the project.