Posted on November 2, 2026
By Emily Jones
The University of Georgia plans to use an $8 million federal grant to restore salt marshes in Georgia, Florida, and the Carolinas.
Coastal salt marshes provide critical habitat for lots of animals, and protection from the dangerous tides and flooding that come with stronger storms. Georgia is home to 368,000 acres of marsh, more than a third of the coastal salt marsh in the region. But sea level rise due to climate change is eating away at it.
“That sort of creates that imperative to do something to make sure our future generations have the same marsh system providing these benefits,” said Mark Risse, the director of the Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant at the University of Georgia. “We don’t want to see the marsh disappear.”
His team plans to use dredged-up sand and mud to restore eroding marshes. The US Army Corps of Engineers does regular dredging in coastal waterways and shipping channels to keep them deep enough for boats. What they dredge up is usually either deposited on land or dumped offshore.
But, Risse said, there are better uses for it.
“We think one of the best applications for beneficially reusing it is to put it on our marshes to restore areas where marshes have already been degraded,” he said.
UGA and its partners plan to use the grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to restore more than 300 acres of marsh across four states. Working with the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative, UGA and the teams from other universities hope to establish a blueprint for this approach to marsh restoration that can be used again around the region and country.
