The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association announced May 18 that the Cardiff State Beach Living Shoreline project in Encinitas won the top honor for the 2020 Best Restored Beach Award.
By utilizing recovered and imported rock materials, dredged sand from the San Elijo Lagoon inlet and locally sourced coastal plants, this dune creation project provides an ecological facelift that increases biodiversity with the added benefit of protecting Coast Highway 101 from ocean surges.
The Cardiff State Beach Living Shoreline project is the first Southern California project to test this unique nature-based solution to provide beach erosion and flood protection of a vulnerable coastal asset. Serving as a pilot project, the engineering and project design takes an innovative approach to shoreline protection by mimicking beach-dune systems which build-up and erode with the seasons, providing a natural buffer for the critical infrastructure behind them.
Read the rest of the article published by San Diego County News here.