South Jersey Highlights is a series of profiles on local environmental groups, advocates, clubs and natural sites. You can read all of the articles in the series. If you’d like to have your organization profiled, you can contact us.
Issues like storm damage, flooding, and beach erosion are common for towns along the Jersey Shore.
To help residents and elected officials better understand the science behind these issues and how to plan for the future, many municipalities rely on the Coastal Research Center at Stockton University.
Founded in 1981, the center specializes in issues like coastal management, monitoring of beach infrastructure, and wetlands analysis. Researchers and scientists gather data that has been used at the federal, state and local level.
The center maintains data on 171 beaches along the shoreline. They measure beach elevation of dunes to 14 feet below water depth. And using a boat that connects the hydrographic survey, scientists can measure and map underwater features. Survey data and photographic records have been collected since 1986.
“We just go out, and if they ask us to go do the surveys, then they get a means to quantify those changes,” said Interim Director Kimberly McKenna. “So we were the ones who actually can calculate how much sand is moving around or lost from a specific area.”
One example of their work is in their partnership with Long Beach Township, where they help to address the Bay Island erosion. The bay island gets impacts from the changes in sea levels and from storms. With the work from the township and an engineer from Monmouth University, they received a grant to begin creating a living shoreline, composed of recycled oyster shells.
The team is known for helping when storms hit. The center helped with Delaware Bay restoration after Hurricane Sandy. The center will focus on monitoring changes and providing information on what happened during the storm.
All of this research helps towns better plan for the future, but also helps keep residents engaged in local zoning and development issues.
“Younger people are getting more involved, and local citizens, local taxpayers are becoming more involved,” said McKenna. “So I think it’s just the awareness that is happening is a huge step in New Jersey. You know, people aren’t burying their hands in the sand. They’re actually trying to understand what’s happening.”
