ABSTRACT
The process of ecological engineering symbiotically combines engineering and ecological techniques to redesign and rebuild structures and associated natural assemblages in the ecosystem so that they benefit populations of humans and wildlife. A number of types of ecological impacts have commonly been associated with armored shorelines: changes to population structure of individual species, their behavior, or interactions; reduced native biodiversity; changes to biodiversity in adjacent habitats'; and increases in nonindigenous species. In the case of artificial shores, more complicated models may be appropriate because populations consist of smaller groups, some of which inhabit fragments of natural shores and others fragments of artificial shores, with potentially different ecological processes affecting abundances, sizes, and so on, on each. Humans are now intrinsic agents of landscape evolution with decisions on how, when, and where to place, modify, or remove artificial shores depending on inputs from ecologists, engineers, and policy makers.
