Abstract
While coastal and marine infrastructure (CMI) such as ports and marinas, add a significant amount of hard substrate for marine organisms to inhabit, they do not support similar species assemblages to those of natural habitats. Standard CMI are designed and built to comply with specified engineering and operational requirements (strength, longevity etc.), and do not take into consideration ecological considerations. This leads to featureless designs, with very steep slopes, low structural complexity, and high homogeneity; all of which are rarely found in natural habitats. As a result, traditional CMI do not provide suitable conditions for the development of diverse biological assemblages and are typically dominated by nuisance and invasive species. As opposed to natural or nature-based systems that adapt and change with time, standard CMI deteriorate and become less effective in coping with new conditions resulting from long-term changes associated with global climate change. In light of predictions for an increase in human pressure on coastal zones, sea level rise and increased storminess, there is a growing global need for more adaptive, resilient environmentally sensitive CMI, especially with more countries adopting Blue Growth strategies aimed at sustainable management of coastal and marine resources. ECOncrete® - Bringing Concrete to Life ECOncrete® products fully comply with the strict requirements of coastal and marine construction, such as compressive strength, chloride penetration, and other industry standards. Yet as opposed to standard CMI, that inflict stress on coastal environments, ECOncrete® 's ecological concrete solutions enhanced biological productivity and ecological value to standard construction elements without altering their engineering functionality, reducing the ecological footprint of CMI. Not only do ECOncrete® products not compromise the structural performance of CMI, they actually improve it.
