Restoring Piping Plover Habitat and Building Coastal Resilience with Nature-based Solutions in Atlantic Canada

Abstract

Located in north-eastern Canada near Shippagan, New Brunswick, the Shippagan Gully Conservation Offsetting Project is leveraging salt marsh creation and sand motor techniques to create Piping Plover habitat while increasing resiliency of the Chaisson Office Spit and surrounding communities to climate change. The spit has been altered by more than a century of human activity and is increasingly impacted by climate change and sea-level rise. The project, which employs a holistic approach to improve marine navigation through the Gully and install nature-based solutions for coastal protection and habitat creation, is the first sand motor in Atlantic Canada and the most northern created marsh with sill to date. Extensive modeling was undertaken by NRC prior to the commencement of baseline data collection and design in 2017. Several monitoring and research initiatives are associated with the project, including a fifteen-year monitoring program (regulatory requirement), five-year post-graduate scientific research program, and a 3-year research project which will augment and build on the NRC-led Nature-Based Infrastructure for Coastal Resilience project. Construction began on the sand motor in 2020, with the marsh and marsh sill scheduled to be built in winter 2023 from on-site materials and planted in  spring 2023. The final stages of the implementation will include dune and wetland restoration following the removal of old infrastructure, returning nearly the entire spit to a more natural state and restoring natural processes. The first two years of monitoring following the sand motor implementation have shown a shift in conditions to those more closely matching a nearby control site, as well as the first successful nesting and fledging of Piping Plover (Federally Endangered Species) on the site in over 20 years. The project is the result of a collaborative effort that includes federal and provincial government departments, private industry, academia, and environmental NGOs.