The Condor Street Urban Wild, a living seawall in East Boston, was completed Nov. 13 by the Stone Living Lab at the University of Massachusetts Boston.
The Living Seawall project originated at the Sydney Institute of Marine Science to bring ecological sustainability to existing marine construction. After implementing the projects in Australia, the program expanded to add living seawalls — coastal structures designed to enhance biodiversity by mimicking natural marine environments — around the world.
It took about a year and a half to plan the installations and complete the project itself after organizers of the Living Seawall project contacted the Stone Living Lab, said Joe Christo, managing director for the Stone Living Lab.
Christo said the project aims to “make gray infrastructure more green,” and share the results of the living seawall with other cities.
“We really look forward to learning from this prototype and then expanding and having more living seawalls along the shoreline of Boston Harbor,” Christo said.
Jarrett Byrnes, associate professor in the Department of Biology at UMass Boston, said the East Boston area lacked biodiversity and life before the seawall was constructed.
“Boston Harbor is largely an urbanized habitat along the coastline,” Byrnes said. “They’re not great habitats for organisms to thrive and survive.”
Now that the project is complete, UMass Boston doctoral students and Stone Living Lab researchers have been observing the species inhabiting the living seawall, Byrnes said.
Byrnes said they are conducting monthly surveys to observe which organisms are using the seawall and sampling water quality. In the summer, they will examine the living seawalls’ impact, specifically whether they are “changing biodiversity” compared to if they had taken no action.
The first sampling measurements done by the lab’s researchers have shown marine life already flocking to the area, including snails in the newly installed panels and mussels that washed up from pools, Byrnes said.
Byrnes said he is “not expecting to see really major changes” until other organisms move to the seawall and reproduce in the coming months.
“We’re really excited to look in the spring, and particularly in the summer, to see what these seawalls look like,” Byrnes said. “They’re really beautiful.”
Byrnes said he and other researchers are examining what organisms use the seawalls, including seahorses they found in the areas last summer.
Christo said while he and the Stone Living Lab have not yet spoken to residents about the living seawall, they “look forward” to engaging residents in the conservation efforts through education and programming related to the project.
“Living seawalls help residents engage in climate resilience planning and learn more about climate change,” Christo said.
After completing the construction of the wall, the Stone Living Lab plans to continue monitoring the wall over the next few years and will present its findings at a conference in April, Christo said.
“We’re certainly excited about the promise and possibility of living sea walls,” Byrnes said. “When we protect urban coastal areas, we’re also able to enhance native biodiversity and make these areas into a real home, both for people and for organisms.”
