When a Breakwater Does Not Look Like a Breakwater by Emulating Nature

The push for creating more environmentally compatible shore and harbor protection often puts the reality of the needs for resilience and strength at odds with the needs of nature. Softer protection schemes, such as floating wave attenuators and non-bottom founded protection methods, are typically inadequate in resisting the ravages of the storm. On the contrary, the construction of solid ring breakwaters alters the texture of the shoreline and affects the biota. Out-of-the-box thinking was required to find an approach that could emulate the natural environment while being resilient enough to protect against hurricane events, promoting ecology, and offering safe and manageable navigation. The solution was found in building a protection system of artificial islands; this system of islands was configured to create wave sheltering, oriented to reduce long term sedimentation effects by controlling tidal flow patterns, and executed to be a living island archipelago with both benthic and terrestrial habitats.