Coastal Inlets as Strategic Habitat for Shorebirds in the Southeastern United States

Abstract

The Corps is responsible for managing and maintaining navigable coastal and inland waterways of the United States Activities associated with the maintenance of waterways and shorelines in the coastal region include dredging, dredged material disposal operations, and beach nourishment. Coastal engineering projects can potentially create, enhance, degrade, or destroy foraging and nesting habitat at important coastal bird breeding, stopover, or wintering sites. Operations near sites important to birds should be carefully designed so as to reduce negative impacts as well as to protect and conserve existing foraging habitats or beach and upland nesting areas. This technical note is part of a peer-reviewed series of focused publications that address two different areas where the Corps could better contribute to bird conservation: 1) enhancing the practice of dredged material disposal for the creation and maintenance of bird nesting islands, shorebird and waterbird foraging habitat, and wetland restoration projects that provide high quality bird habitat: and 2) designing and implementing coastal engineering projects that provide better nesting, foraging, and roosting habitats for shoreline-dependent birds. The Corps is working closely with American Bird Conservancy to improve communication with the bird conservation community to assist in the conservation of birds while simultaneously carrying out its various missions.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Oct 01, 2008
Accession Number
ADA491729

Entities

People

  • Brian R. Harrington

Organizations

  • Engineer Research and Development Center

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Birds
  • Coastal Engineering
  • Ecology
  • Engineering
  • Engineers
  • Habitats
  • United States
  • Waterways
  • Wildlife

Fields of Study

  • Environmental science

Readers

  • Aerospace Engineering
  • Coastal and Marine Engineering/Sediment Transport/Hydraulic Engineering
  • Wetland-Land-Environmental Management.