Our nation’s coasts are home to almost 40% of the U.S. population and many of our urban communities. Continued population growth along the coasts, and urbanization pose challenges and opportunities for coastal and urban conservation. Learn in this session how the University of Puerto Rico and the nonprofit organization, Protectores de Cuencas are restoring and conserving coastal ecosystems for resilient communities in Puerto Rico while helping the next generation gain valuable skills and certification in ecological restoration.
1. Strengthening the Resilience of Communites
to Extreme Weather in Puerto Rico
through the Ecological Restoration of
Coastal Ecosystems.
Robert J. Mayer Ph.D., CERP
Universidad de Puerto Rico en Aguadilla
Vida Marina: Center for Conservation and Ecological Restoration
robert.mayer@upr.edu
(787) 890-2681 x 2295
2. Dunes are found on 13 coastal municipalities
on the north coast of Puerto Rico.
47.8% of those dunes are found in Isabela, Dorado and Loiza.
Isabela Dorado Loiza
3. Coastal dunes in Puerto Rico serve as habitat for
important biota
4. They also play an important role in protecting
lives and primary infrastructure from extreme
weather
5. Secret Spot, Isabela
Many of these dunes were very impressive
and near world renowned surfing beaches
6. Dunes in Puerto Rico have many threats and have
been damaged, degraded and destroyed by
human action
7. Secret Spot Beach, Isabela
Many of the sites still have heavy traffic of
all-terrain vehicles.
Destroys stabilizing vegetation preventing dunes from forming
Compaction of the sand, altering the habitat of many species of
animals including diatoms, crabs and sea turtles
8. Poza de Teodoro, Isabela, Puerto Rico (2007)
As a result of these threats the dunes on the
north coast of Puerto Rico are in a very
fragile state
Increase in the vulnerability of our coastal communities to
extreme weather and other effects of climate change.
Habitat loss
9. Hurricane María - September 20, 2017
Recent storms severely damaged our already
fragile coast
10.
11. Random beach accesses, on primary dunes, are
a major threat to their integrity and cause problems.
12. Random beach accesses
cause a reduction in
vegetation cover that
makes the dunes more
susceptible to erosion.
Puts primary infrastructure, property and
lives in danger in the event of strong
wave action.
PR-187, Loiza Puerto Rico
13. Storms have also recently displaced large
volumes of sand away from our dune systems.
There are no relocation programs for displaced sand in Puerto Rico
14. Our dune restoration work has six steps
Select the sites to be restored - Coastal Resilience
Evaluation and Siting Tool (NFWF) and other tools
Capture of aerial imagery (UAS) to asses
the condition of the sites and perform a
baseline inventory
Process and analyze aerial imagery using
photogrammetry software. Develop
a reference ecosystem.
16. Set restoration targets, goals and objectives and then
make recommendations or “prescriptions” for the ecological
restoration of each of the sites.
Implement project and
collect data
Planning and implementation.
Monitoring and adaptive
maintenance
17. Puerto Rico
Isabela
Camuy Hatillo Arecibo Manatí
Dorado
Luquillo
• End of Pedro Albizu Campos St.
• End of Monte de Oca St.
• Haudimar housing complex
• Golondrinas Beach
• West Secret Spot Beach
• Breach between S. Spot and Middles
• Breach on Middles Beach
• Poza de Teodoro Beach
• Shore Island Beach
• Pozo Brujo
• Bajura sites
• Villa Pesquera
• Reserva Natural Finca Nolla
• Urbanización Costa Norte
• Jarealito
• Maranto
• Poza de las mujeres
• Mar Chiquita
• Caracol
• El Único
•
• Reserva Natural Corredor Ecológico del Noroeste
Jarealito, Arecibo
Loiza
• Road PR-187
Culebra
Our dune restoration work is impacting multiple sites on 9 municipalities
along the north coast of Puerto Rico and Culebra
18. We use an RTK GPS enabled Unoccupied Aerial System
(UAS) to capture aerial imagery of the selected sites.
Images were analyzed using photogrammetry software
≈ 0.05 km2
Point cloud grid
≥ 30 minutes of flight time
≈ 500 images
Each high accuracy mission:
19. Contour map of Pedro Albizu street in Barrio Bajuras, Isabela Puerto Rico with elevation intervals
of 1 meter.
We then generate maps and models from that
imagery.
20. Gray Scale Digital Surface Models (DSM) of the
end of Pedro Albizu Campos St. in Isabela.
21. This allows us to analyze each site both from the
ground and from the air.
Pedro Albizu street in Barrio Bajuras, Isabela Puerto Rico
22. Land cover/land-use analysis of anthropogenic
impacts
Maranto Beach, Arecibo Puerto Rico
This allows us to collect baseline data that is critical for monitoring implementation and
effectiveness.
23. We use the Sample Point application to determine
percent vegetation cover and other parameters.
27. We want to return these ecosystems to
their historical trajectory
We design our projects to be effective, efficient and engaging
We harness any “remaining potential of species to regenerate” to
establish a self-organizing ecosystem.
We undertake more intensive interventions when this
regeneration potential has been depleted
28. Vida Marina is the Center of Conservation
and Ecological Restoration of the University
of Puerto Rico
Operated by undergraduate research
students and 8 full time employees that
do multiple tasks related to our ecological
restoration projects.
35. We promote the natural accumulation sand that is
transported by the wind
36. July 7, 2018
November 8, 2018
Using biomimicry matrices has several advantages
to using traditional sand accumulation barriers
(sand fences)
Uniform accumulation of sand
Wider accumulation patterns
Resistant to storm surge and
strong wave action
Low disruption of matrix
compared to pallets or fencing
Easily re-adjusted
Lighter
Protects recently planted
vegetation from sand blasting
Cost effective
44. El pisar las dunas y caminar fuera de los paseos de
madera pone en riesgo a esta comunidad.
Respeta a las personas que viven aquí usando los paseos de madera. No pises las dunas ni camines
por pasadisos en la misma. Proteje la vegetación para que la arena se acumule y pueda proteger vidas.
Reporta cualquier daño a estas estructuras al cuerpo de vigilantes del DRNA al (787) 724-5700 o a Vida Marina (787) 890-2681 x 2295
45.
46. Group of volunteers from CUNY. 2020
We propagate all our plant material in
our own greenhouse
47.
48. This has inspired K-12
students to develop science
fair projects related to this
technique
Esteban O. Barreto
49. Site location:
End of Pedro Albizu Campos in Barrio Bajuras
Isabela, Puerto Rico.
We have been observing very positive results, in
some of the sites, in a short period of time.
50. The dune was totally devastated in this area and
the sand was relocated with heavy machinery to
form an artificial dune
Pedro Albizu street in Barrio Bajuras, Isabela Puerto Rico
59. Recovery wheel and five - star system
Uses 6 ecosystem attributes to
visually communicate progress
Site and scale specific
Describes an ecosystem that
is on a self organizing trajectory
to full recovery
63. Aerial image of the Loiza coast showing segments of primary dune that will be restored in the proposed project (yellow lines). The length of these segments is 337 m and
6,647 m.
We have recently identified a total of 125 sites along road PR-187 in Loiza, as high priority areas that
need to be restored in order to increase the resilience of local communities.
There are more sites that need to be restored along the
north coast of the main island as well as in the small
island of Culebra.
64. 18.44783o
N - 65.89607o
W
Wide pathway on dune that will act as a water inlet in storms and cause flooding on PR-187
and damage to primary infrastructure. The area is next to an abandoned small concrete
structure. There are several houses across the street from this breach.
Site 5, Loiza, PR
Recommendations
Boardwalk = 40 m
Exclusion fence = 13 m
Biomimicry matrix
Vegetation
Information signs = 2
This area has a wide beach on the fore
dune area that will be stabilized
with biomimicry and re-vegetation.
Additional sites that need to be restored
65. Global Earth Partnership
We are spreading the word about the importance of
dune restoration with our environmental education
component.
73. The ultimate goal of Vida Marina is to transfer our
experience and techniques to other parts of the
Caribbean
Contributing to increasing the resilience of the Caribbean to strong
more frequent storms and other effects of climate change
74.
75. Thanks for helping us make our communities and habitats
more resilient to extreme weather and other
effects of climate change.
Editor's Notes
Las dunas son ecosistemas unicos y que proven un nicho importante para muchos organismos ademas de que sirven como lugar de relajacion y recreacion para el ser humano.
The gove
Estimation of dune ecosystems in terms of storm damage – This technique estimates the average per unit value of dune ecosystem variables based on the derivative of the model’s equation with respect to a dune variable
Pix4D is a suite of software products that use photogrammetry and computer vision algorithms to transform both RGB and multispectral images into 3D maps and models.
Ten sites along the north western coast of Puerto Rico
We focused on highly populated areas that are located behind coastal dunes
Pix4D is a suite of software products that use photogrammetry and computer vision algorithms to transform both RGB and multispectral images into 3D maps and models
I had interesting conversation yesterday. Topography as a function of vegetation.Topographic maps provide a snapshot of the current lay of the landscape.The topography is a function of the vegetative conditions. By that I mean the topography is the way it is because of the existing vegetation.I realized that civil engineering designs for large construction projects are based on pre-construction topography/vegetation and DO NOT account for the changes that occur when vegetation is removed.After vegetation is removed rainfall directly impacts the soil surface, dislodging soil particles causing erosion that was NOT accounted for in the civil design. Additionally, once vegetation is removed there are no obstacles (grass, stems, trees, brush,etc) to break concentrated flow.The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation 2 (RUSLE2) is a tool to determine how landuse (pre vs during vs post-construction) will alter the erosion potential.SWPPP plans should be developed using RUSLE2 calculation for bare soil... and not developed by pre-construction vegetation conditions.
Vamery R. Gonzalez y José Caijga
Full recovery of a site would be represented by a solid circle