Bringing marine life back to South Florida's 'forgotten edge'

## Summary
NPR Science LISTEN & FOLLOW NPR App Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon Music iHeart Radio YouTube Music RSS link Science Bringing marine life back to South Florida's 'forgotten edge' March 17, 2026 6:00 AM ET By Nathan Rott An experiment in nature-inspired design is underway in a South Florida residential canal. Nathan Rott/NPR hide caption toggle caption Nathan Rott/NPR POMPANO BEACH, Fla. — At the back edge of a backyard, in a dead-end South Florida canal, Arthur Tiedeman is drilling holes into the face of a seawall his marine construction company recently installed. For more than a decade , his primary focus has been on seawalls, what he calls "a forgotten edge." "I've always wanted to be near water," says Keith Van de Riet. "And the idea of creating things that are beneficial for people and other species — I find that appealing." Nathan Rott/NPR hide caption toggle caption Nathan Rott/NPR And the reason, he says, is simple: In many places it's the only shoreline left. "This all would have been meandering mangroves, maybe a mangrove creek here that [people] just blew out," he says. Nathan Rott/NPR hide caption toggle caption Nathan Rott/NPR "We're taking that last one percent [of habitat] that they're clinging to and changing the material," Van de Riet says, "pulling the rug out from under these oysters." His hope is that his mangrove planters will help sustain populations of those oysters through the transition.

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Bringing marine life back to South Florida's 'forgotten edge'
March 17, 2026
6:00 AM ET
By
Nathan Rott
An experiment in nature-inspired design is underway in a South Florida residential canal. Two mangrove planters are being installed on a new seawall to provide habitat for marine wildlife.
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POMPANO BEACH, Fla. — At the back edge of a backyard, in a dead-end South Florida canal, Arthur Tiedeman is drilling holes into the face of a seawall his marine construction company recently installed.
The seawall is a newer design of reinforced concrete encased in vinyl. It's a smooth, hardened ledge at the intersection of land and sea that's designed to protect property and make the coastline more habitable for people.
The problem, Tiedeman says, is that it makes the coastline not very habitable to anything else. "It's not a natural shoreline like mangroves and sand," he says. "It's just a straight giant wall."
That's why he and his crew are on a bobbing barge outfitted with a crane, installing two first-of-their-kind planters that, when hung, will house two living mangrove trees on the otherwise featureless wall.
The planters are pockmarked and rough-cut; etched and grooved to mimic oyster reefs and mangrove roots. They're a wildlife-focused add-on — one of the latest products in a fast-growing commercial market that's selling homeowners and municipalities on a more holistic approach to marine infrastructure.
"Even these tiny little pores you get, those are little pockets that tiny organisms will start to take up residence in," says Keith Van de Riet, the designer of the new planters.
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Nathan Rott/NPR
"We're in a time period — a golden era — where humanity has kind of realized what we've done here," Tiedeman says, gesturing up the dredged canal. With the erasure of so much natural habitat, pollution, overfishing and climate change, populations of popular fish like grouper and snapper
are declining
. Water quality in many canals and bays
is worsening
.
There's a growing recognition that municipalities and property owners need to "improve the shoreline and build infrastructure with the environment in mind," Tiedeman says.
Climate
Mangroves protect communities from storms. Half are at risk of collapse, report finds
"That's what makes all these properties worth what they're worth," he says, referencing the mansions lining the canal. "The water. And the enjoyment of the water."
A "forgotten edge"
The new mangrove planters were designed by Keith Van de Riet, a professor at the University of Kansas, who's helping with their installation.
An architect by training and an avid angler, Van de Riet has long been interested in finding ways to improve the design of coastal infrastructure so that it benefits more than just people. For
more than a decade
, his primary focus has been on seawalls, what he calls "a forgotten edge."
"I've always wanted to be near water," says Keith Van de Riet. "And the idea of creating things that are beneficial for people and other species — I find that appealing."
Nathan Rott/NPR
hide caption
toggle caption
Nathan Rott/NPR
And the reason, he says, is simple: In many places it's the only shoreline left. "This all would have been meandering mangroves, maybe a mangrove creek here that [people] just blew out," he says.
By dredging the waterway and barricading its edges, people have taken that soggy horizontal plane — a life-rich intertidal zone that supports oysters, crabs, fish and birds — and collapsed it, he says, "into a vertical wall with a single dimension to it."
Marine organisms don't like homogeneity. They like nooks and crannies — places to hide.
"The more texture the better," Van de Riet says.
World
Pakistan is planting lots of mangrove forests. So why are some upset?
For water-filtering oysters, a keystone species in marine habitats, concrete seawalls — the standard in South Florida for more than a century — can provide some of that texture. Van de Riet points to clusters growing on a concrete ledge just below the scumline, just one property down from where his planters are being installed.
It's a sliver of habitat compared to what they'd have in a natural environment, he says, but a critical one. And it's now at risk of shrinking further, as many of South Florida's concrete seawalls, built in the post-World War II boom, are hitting the end of their lifetime — what Tiedeman calls the "seawall pandemic." Those seawalls, it turns out, are increasingly being replaced with steel or vinyl — smooth, featureless products that offer no welcoming texture for living things.
Arthur Tiedeman measures the distance between scumline and the seawall's top to determine where to put the planters.
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Nathan Rott/NPR
"We're taking that last one percent [of h

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## Expert Analysis

### Merits
- Mimicking nature Globally, there's a lot of innovation happening and new products like Van de Riet's becoming available, says Rachel Gittman, a coastal ecologist at East Carolina University.
- Restoring those coastlines, Gittman says, will require significant policy changes from national and local governments.

### Areas for Consideration
- The problem, Tiedeman says, is that it makes the coastline not very habitable to anything else. "It's not a natural shoreline like mangroves and sand," he says. "It's just a straight giant wall." That's why he and his crew are on a bobbing barge outfitted with a crane, installing two first-of-their-kind planters that, when hung, will house two living mangrove trees on the otherwise featureless wall.
- Half are at risk of collapse, report finds "That's what makes all these properties worth what they're worth," he says, referencing the mansions lining the canal. "The water.
- And it's now at risk of shrinking further, as many of South Florida's concrete seawalls, built in the post-World War II boom, are hitting the end of their lifetime — what Tiedeman calls the "seawall pandemic." Those seawalls, it turns out, are increasingly being replaced with steel or vinyl — smooth, featureless products that offer no welcoming texture for living things.

### Implications
- The problem, Tiedeman says, is that it makes the coastline not very habitable to anything else. "It's not a natural shoreline like mangroves and sand," he says. "It's just a straight giant wall." That's why he and his crew are on a bobbing barge outfitted with a crane, installing two first-of-their-kind planters that, when hung, will house two living mangrove trees on the otherwise featureless wall.
- They're a wildlife-focused add-on — one of the latest products in a fast-growing commercial market that's selling homeowners and municipalities on a more holistic approach to marine infrastructure. "Even these tiny little pores you get, those are little pockets that tiny organisms will start to take up residence in," says Keith Van de Riet, the designer of the new planters.
- With the erasure of so much natural habitat, pollution, overfishing and climate change, populations of popular fish like grouper and snapper are declining .
- Nathan Rott/NPR hide caption toggle caption Nathan Rott/NPR "We're taking that last one percent [of habitat] that they're clinging to and changing the material," Van de Riet says, "pulling the rug out from under these oysters." His hope is that his mangrove planters will help sustain populations of those oysters through the transition.

### Expert Commentary
This article covers npr, caption, van topics. Notable strengths include discussion of npr. Areas of concern are also raised. Readability: Flesch-Kincaid grade 0.0. Word count: 1226.