Alongside its mission to provide improved and safe access on and off vessels – underpinned by the statistic that 34% of lost time injury is caused when getting on or off vessels (data from Port Industry Incidents Statistics 2022) - Inland and Coastal Marina Systems used Seawork as the opportunity for PhD student Jess Allen from University of Plymouth to explain how living seawalls are helping regenerate marine ecological systems.
With 40% of the global population of the UK now living within 100 km of the coast, Jess demonstrated how the coast itself has become more and more developed with hard engineered coastlines – a term known as ocean sprawl.
This change from natural to built environment has a detrimental effect on wildlife and marine bio diversity. Inland and Coastal Marina Systems are the exclusive supplier and manufacturer of living seawalls, created from modular tiles with different designs, providing the habitat-providing features found on natural shorelines, a process known as ‘bio mimicry”. The tiles are made from glass fibre reinforced concrete and generally utilise waste material from the marina structures installed by Inland and Coastal Marina Systems.
Jess demonstrated how one of the largest living seawalls in the UK has been installed in Plymouth and has already attracted colonies of shrimps and crabs, as well as growth of green algae and large brown seaweed, which will also go on to provide a natural marine habitat thanks to the initial generation from the living sea wall.
