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  • WHERE I WORK

Building a living shoreline to help combat climate change

Conservationist Eileen Maher uses large spheres made of shells, sand and cement to prevent erosion and attract oysters as part of her work to manage tidelands around a Southern Californian port.
  1. Kendall Powell

    1. Kendall Powell is a freelance writer in Boulder, Colorado.

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Eileen Maher examines partly submerged reef balls, made from a mixture of cement, sand and crushed oyster shells

Eileen Maher is the director of environmental conservation at the Port of San Diego in California. Credit: Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty

I’m a conservation land manager at the Port of San Diego in California. My team and I aim to manage the tidelands around San Diego Bay, an area of more than 4,850 hectares, three-quarters of which is covered by water at high tide. At least 60% of the bay’s shoreline is ‘hardened’ — that is, it is edged with either a solid seawall or rip rap, piles of artificial boulders.

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Nature 612, 808 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-04468-9

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