Photo by Doug DuCap Food and Travel: CC-by-sa

With the damage from storm Sandy in the eastern U.S. still fresh, now is as good a time as any to look to nature for lessons in resiliency, especially at the ecosystem level. Historically, healthy coastal ecosystems in the U.S. and elsewhere relied on oyster reefs to buffer coastlines from storms and filter water. Oyster reefs form as generations of oysters grow and cement themselves on top of each other, providing habitat for other ocean creatures and improving water quality as the oysters filter feed. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that oysters were once able to filter all of the water in Chesapeake Bay in about a week.

As once vast East Coast oyster reefs succumbed to overharvesting and pollution, we lost the quality of ecosystem services they were able to provide, and Sandy showed the devasation that can result when we fail to ensure continued ecosystem health. Fortunately, many groups are already working to restore the quantity and quality of oyster reefs off the U.S.’s Eastern seaboard. It will take a dedicated effort: the original oyster reefs off the coast of New York built up over 7,000 years, according to an Op-Ed by Paul Greenberg in this week’s New York Times.

But a grand challenge is no reason for inaction, and biomimicry has a place. Biomimicry Fellow Dr. Anamarija Frankic (who recently got a biomimicry course approved for general science distribution credit at UMass Boston) directs the Green Harbors Project, which works to establish green urban harbors—that is harbors that live within ecological and human limits—beginning with the question “What would nature do in this harbor, here in this place?” If we all ask that question before tinkering with coastal systems and development, perhaps our harbors will once again provide us with protection and shelter from raging storms.