Building a Living Shoreline: SCDNR Research at Fort Johnson
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Time to read 5 min
What Is a Living Shoreline?
Living shorelines are nature-based approaches to protecting vulnerable coastal habitat.
Rather than relying solely on hardened structures, these projects use natural processes and often living organisms to help reduce erosion, create habitat, and build more resilient shorelines.
In South Carolina, oysters are particularly well suited for the job. The state’s estuarine waters contain an abundance of naturally occurring oyster larvae. But those larvae need something hard to attach to before they can begin growing.
That’s where oyster restoration materials come in.
For years, researchers with SCDNR’s Marine Resources Division have studied different ways of creating that foundation. Two of those methods are bagged oyster shell and manufactured wire reefs, or MWRs.
Bagged shell is exactly what it sounds like: loose oyster shells contained in mesh bags and placed along the shoreline. MWRs are purpose-built wire structures designed to provide another hard surface for oysters to colonize.
Once these materials are placed in suitable areas, nature begins doing the rest.
Oyster larvae attach to the structures, grow, and begin forming a living reef. Over time, those reefs can create habitat for other marine species while also helping absorb wave energy and protect the marsh behind them. But building a successful living shoreline takes more than simply putting structures in the water.
That’s where the research comes in.
Why This Work Matters: Years of Research Along South Carolina’s Coast
From 2016 through 2023, researchers with SCDNR’s Marine Resources Division worked alongside the National Estuarine Research Reserve Science Collaborative program and the South Carolina Department of Environmental Services to better understand how different living shoreline methods perform.
The goal wasn’t just to determine whether oysters would grow. Researchers wanted to understand how these approaches performed under different shoreline conditions and whether they could ultimately help protect salt marsh habitat from erosion.
Over six years of monitoring, their research showed that oyster-supporting methods like bagged shell and manufactured wire reefs could provide meaningful shoreline protection when installed under the right conditions. But it also reinforced something important: every shoreline is different.
The type of material used, its placement within the tidal zone, its distance from the marsh, the shape of the shoreline, and the amount of wave energy at a site can all influence how well a living shoreline performs. That understanding matters far beyond a single reef.
SCDNR’s Marine Resources Division works across South Carolina’s coast to understand and protect the wildlife and habitats that make these waters unique. Oyster restoration is a significant part of that effort, with SCDNR biologists recycling and planting thousands of bushels of oyster shell each year to create new reef habitat and shoreline.
The more researchers understand about how these systems respond over time, the better equipped they are to design restoration projects that work with the unique conditions of each site.
And at Fort Johnson, they now have another opportunity to put that knowledge into practice.
Putting the Research to Work: Fort Johnson
On July 27, 2026, SCDNR researchers, staff, and volunteers completed a new living shoreline installation along the edge of the Marine Resources Research Institute at Fort Johnson.
The project stretches just over 200 feet and includes 50 manufactured wire reefs and 150 bags of oyster shell. But what makes the project particularly interesting is how those materials are being used together.
The shell bags were positioned as a bolster in front of the manufactured wire reefs, helping the installation resist wave energy coming off Charleston Harbor. Both materials then provide the hard surfaces naturally occurring oyster larvae need to attach, grow, and begin building reef habitat.
According to Gary Sundin of SCDNR’s Marine Resources Division, researchers have successfully studied both approaches, but the methods had not previously been combined at this scale beyond small experimental plots.
Support from the Toadfish Conservation Coalition helped create an opportunity to do exactly that. Through funding and volunteer support, we were able to help SCDNR take two methods backed by years of research and apply them together at a site where the project can serve two purposes: protecting an actively eroding stretch of salt marsh and creating a highly accessible location for continued research.
It’s the kind of project we believe in. Not simply putting more oyster habitat in the water, but supporting the scientists and organizations working to understand how restoration can have the greatest long-term impact.
Looking Ahead: A Reef Built to Be Studied
Photo Credit: SCDNR
The installation may have been completed in a day, but the real story of this reef will unfold over years.
As Sundin explains, SCDNR researchers have been monitoring shoreline erosion at the Fort Johnson site since 2017. That means they already have years of information documenting how the shoreline behaved before the new reef was installed.
Researchers will continue monitoring the integrity of the installation, the amount of oyster growth covering the manufactured wire reefs, and the rate of shoreline erosion behind the reef. Over time, they'll be able to compare those results with the years of data collected before the installation adding another piece to SCDNR’s broader understanding of how living shorelines perform across South Carolina. And that's what makes projects like this so valuable.
Restoration isn't just about what gets put in the water today. It's about learning what works, understanding why it works, and using that knowledge to make the next project even better.
For us, supporting that process is an important part of the Put ’Em Back mission. Because every reef starts somewhere. And sometimes, a little more structure beneath the water can help give an entire shoreline a stronger foundation for the future. #PutEmBack
Sources: Project information provided by Gary Sundin, South Carolina Department of Natural Resources (SCDNR) Marine Resources Division. Additional information sourced from SCDNR living shoreline research and outreach materials.
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Question 2
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