Environmental group hopes 'living shoreline' protects Halifax coast

A Nova Scotia environmental group is hoping to bring life back to the province's shorelines in an effort to ease the effects of flooding and coastal erosion.

Dozens of volunteers in rubber boots and gardening gloves turned out Sunday afternoon to help the Ecology Action Centre plant a "living shoreline" on Halifax's Northwest Arm.

On a narrow rocky beach, volunteers strapped bales of hay onto the crumbling coastal land. The bales are bound to the shore with rope and wood, piled with leaves and planted with native vegetation.

"We pack the shoreline just like you would pack a deep wound on your body," said Rosmarie Lohnes, who designed the project through her landscaping company Helping Nature Heal.

Lohnes says the method is like building a "nature sandwich" along the shore.

"The hay bales are absorbing that water like a big sponge, and as the wave activity is moving in from the water side, they're also creating this absorbant layer that can buffer the sandy soils above them that had been eroding."

Halifax ranks poorly in flood control

Lohnes says the state of the land above the shore also must be considered when restoring a coastline. The patch of sloping municipal land that leads down to the water was frequently mowed, she says, which meant the soil was packed down and unable to absorb rainwater.

"It was a lot like a lawn, and a lot less like an ecosystem," said Robin Tress, coastal adaptation co-ordinator with the Ecology Action Centre.

Tress says much of that land that was previously mowed is being converted to garden beds around the roots of trees, which she says is better suited to absorbing water and preventing flooding.

"So much research shows that coastal ecosystems and wetlands are really good for preventing flooding because the whole purpose of their existence is to manage the flow of water," said Tress.

Halifax recently ranked lowest among major Canadian cities in a evaluation of flood preparedness, conducted by the University of Waterloo. The study suggested that cities across the country are ill-prepared to handle flooding from extreme rainfall.

Tress says projects like the living shoreline in Halifax, which was funded by the University of Waterloo and Intact Insurance, are a way of demonstrating what can be done to manage flooding before damage occurs.

"We can't just keep cleaning up after things happen. We need to be preparing so that messes don't happen in the first place," she said.