Several decades ago, to construct a stable base for I-95 in southeast Georgia, crews excavated land near Midway, Georgia, about 50 miles from Savannah, creating a large pit. Today, this area is a public park, flanked by a tidal creek and the remnants of the excavation. Although over 15 miles from the ocean, the creek experiences high tides twice daily. Lush marsh grass thrives between the solid ground and the creek, contrasting with the other bank where saltwater has eroded the land, depositing sediment in the basin. This transformation has turned the once deep pit into a shallow mudflat with emerging marsh grass islands.
The marsh grasses stop abruptly at the muddy cliff of the bank, sharply eroded by the tide.
“If we walk that way, you’ll be able to see some of the, well, just plain erosion,” said Phil Odom, chairman of Liberty County’s Consolidated Planning Commission, on a recent afternoon. “This is how much it has collapsed. We’ve lost about 6, 8 feet right here.”
Local officials aim to address this erosion by drawing on insights from the I-95 construction and previous unsuccessful attempts. Rather than erecting barriers or using concrete, the county plans to restore naturally occurring marsh grasses, whose roots will stabilize the soil.
“We hope for it to replicate nature,” said Shannon Marino with Zulu Marine, which builds what are known as living shorelines. “When our solutions are done, you should look at it and not really recognize it as a repair or a bulkhead or a solution. It should just look like nature.”
This approach is gaining traction as a method to combat coastal erosion amid rising sea levels. Georgia possesses over a third of the interconnected marsh habitats along the Southeastern U.S. coast, spanning hundreds of thousands of acres. These marshes are vital storm buffers and are protected by state law. However, with sea levels projected to rise 1 to 2 meters over the next 75 years, merely safeguarding existing marsh plants is insufficient.
According to University of North Carolina wetland scientist Lori Sutter, the marshes are capable of migrating inland. “Because of the magic of salt marshes,” she said, “they’re able to persist in this environment where they’re flooded twice a day, every day.”
However, this adaptability depends on having space to expand. When a migrating marsh encounters infrastructure like roads or buildings, its progress halts, leaving nowhere for new grasses to establish, and allowing tides to flood both the marsh and adjacent structures.
A new action plan from conservation groups, scientists, agencies, and communities seeks to protect not just the marshes but also neighboring land. The plan identifies over 56,000 acres in Georgia likely to become marshland, which are currently available for development.
“That creates this really vast area that you’re trying to conserve, which can be overwhelming,” said Courtney Reich, the coastal director for Georgia Conservancy. Her group collaborates with Phil Odom and other stakeholders in Midway and leads the Georgia efforts under the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative, a regional project to restore and protect coastal marshes.
This initiative serves as a guide rather than binding policy, aiming to assist landowners and officials in making informed choices.
“You know, do we want to build up to the edge of the water or do we want to leave room?” Reich said.
Reich noted that short-term needs often influence land use discussions, while the plan encourages consideration of long-term impacts.
Salt marshes are inherently mobile. Odom, an avid fisher, has observed the gradual transformation of Georgia’s coast over the past 75 years, with saltwater encroaching on marsh grass regions, new marshes forming, and tides reaching higher, leaving behind the skeletal remains of trees. Climate change-induced sea level rise accelerates these changes, heightening the urgency for marsh adaptability to safeguard Georgia’s coast.
