ReShore

ReShore is a Netherlands-startup developing a floating, living breakwater for rebuilding ecosystems and protecting coasts.

Research has demonstrated that seaweed aquaculture can reduce soil erosion and lessen the impact of big waves before they hit the shore. While traditional breakwaters help mitigate some of the risks that coastal communities are facing, these solutions are detrimental to natural ecosystems.

For instance, they may provide gray infrastructure that can break high-energy waves, but this causes degradation to the ecosystem where it is built. Through the combination of mussel and kelp cultivation with traditional breakwater technology, ReShore's living breakwater mitigates these risks as it reduces wave energy from medium-sized waves and shoreline erosion uses artificial reef structures to build resilient habitats eliminates excess nitrogen, heavy metals, and phosphorous and create alternative livelihoods, like eco-tourism and fishing, for coastal communities.

It provides the immediate benefit of wave attenuation and the long-term benefits of restoration. The breakwater exists of a series of 15-meter-long tubular pontoons floating on the water.

The tubes are notched and grooved, creating habitat for animals, plants and algae. On both side, seaweed lines further anchor the breakwater. Below water, shellfish cages hang from the pontoons.

The solution can also provide project investors with sustainable revenue streams as it can be linked with blue bonds, biodiversity offsets and other burgeoning market instruments.

The startup partnered with several organizations, including Wageningen University, Starthub Wageningen, University of Southampton, Seaflex, University of Applied Sciences - Vlissingen and Econcrete.

ReShore is working on making itself a viable partner for subsidy applications and is looking to become a for-profit organization, that will develop and expand the potential of its living breakwater.

The startup is looking at places where floating breakwaters are already in use today, like ports, marinas and harbours, and moving beyond that, fish farms as well as dredging companies that implement large-scale coastal protection.