Much of the United States' critical infrastructure is either aging or requires significant repair, leaving U.S. communities and the economy vulnerable. Outdated and dilapidated infrastructure places coastal communities, in particular, at risk from the increasingly frequent and intense coastal storm events and rising sea levels. Therefore, investments in coastal infrastructure are urgently needed to ensure community safety and prosperity; however, these investments should not jeopardize the ecosystems and natural resources that underlie economic wealth and human well-being. Over the past 50 years, efforts have been made to integrate built infrastructure with natural landscape features, often termed "green" infrastructure, in order to sustain and restore valuable ecosystem functions and services. For example, significant advances have been made in implementing green infrastructure approaches for stormwater management, wastewater treatment, and drinking water conservation and delivery. However, the implementation of natural and nature-based infrastructure (NNBI) aimed at flood prevention and coastal erosion protection is lagging. There is an opportunity now, as the U.S. government reacts to the recent, unprecedented flooding and hurricane damage and considers greater infrastructure investments, to incorporate NNBI into coastal infrastructure projects. Doing so will increase resilience and provide critical services to local communities in a cost-effective manner and thereby help to sustain a growing economy.

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In the United States, extensive investments have been made to restore the ecological function and services of coastal marine habitats. Despite a growing body of science supporting coastal restoration, few studies have addressed the suite of societally enabling conditions that helped facilitate successful restoration and recovery efforts that occurred at meaningful ecological (i.e., ecosystem) scales, and where restoration efforts were sustained for longer (i.e., several years to decades) periods. Here, we examined three case studies involving large-scale and long-term restoration efforts including the seagrass restoration effort in Tampa Bay, Florida, the oyster restoration effort in the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland and Virginia, and the tidal marsh restoration effort in San Francisco Bay, California. The ecological systems and the specifics of the ecological restoration were not the focus of our study. Rather, we focused on the underlying social and political contexts of each case study and found common themes of the factors of restoration which appear to be important for maintaining support for large-scale restoration efforts. Four critical elements for sustaining public and/or political support for large-scale restoration include: (1) resources should be invested in building public support prior to significant investments into ecological restoration; (2) building political support provides a level of significance to the recovery planning efforts and creates motivation to set and achieve meaningful recovery goals; (3) recovery plans need to be science-based with clear, measurable goals that resonate with the public; and (4) the accountability of progress toward reaching goals needs to be communicated frequently and in a way that the general public comprehends. These conclusions may help other communities move away from repetitive, single, and seemingly unconnected restoration projects towards more large-scale, bigger impact, and coordinated restoration efforts.

Eastern oysters Crassostrea virginica are dominant ecosystem engineers that construct complex reefs in estuarine systems. Reef persistence relies on reef growth, which must outpace reef degradation and sediment deposition. The quantitative impact of burial on oyster survival and sublethal effects of sediment deposition are undefined. In this mesocosm study, we quantified effects of partial and complete burial (0, 50, 70, 90, and 110% of oyster shell height) on survival, biodeposition, condition index and growth of oysters (shell height = 25−75 mm). Survival only declined significantly when 90% or more of an oyster was buried; the critical burial depth inducing 50% mortality was 108%. This finding will allow scaling of mortality rates of oysters as a function of sediment load and oyster size. Biodeposition and condition index were negatively related to burial depth, whereas shell growth increased with burial depth. Decreases in biodeposition and condition index were likely related to disruption of feeding by burial and reallocation of energy resources to shell growth. The increase in shell growth was analogous to vertical migration of infaunal species -buried oysters increased vertical shell growth to breach the sediment surface to feed and respire, at the expense of tissue growth. While oysters are tolerant of partial burial in terms of survival, burial adversely affects metabolic processes that influence demographic rates and reef persistence. Future management efforts should consider the effects of partial burial, which often occur more frequently than catastrophic burial events causing mass mortality.