Recognition that ecosystem services are essential for mitigating the climate crisis has driven increased interest in habitat restoration strategies aimed at halting and reversing ecosystem decline. Practices such as rewilding and reforestation focus on rebuilding habitats to restore critical ecosystem services that help alleviate climate‑change impacts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 2023, extensive meadows of the seagrass Cymodocea nodosa were discovered along the Mediterranean coast of central Israel (Hepner et al. 2024). While seagrasses are common elsewhere in the Mediterranean, they had never previously been documented along Israel’s Mediterranean shoreline; until now, seagrass presence in Israel was limited to the Gulf of Aqaba in the Red Sea.

The Living Shorelines project was developed to integrate CCELL’s living reef structures with seagrass restoration. Seagrass plants were collected from Mediterranean donor sites, propagated in laboratory nurseries, and transplanted near CCELL facilities to reduce coastal erosion and enhance ecosystem services. Because flowering and seed production were not observed, restoration relied on vegetative “plugs,” a widely used but labor‑intensive method.

Plants were collected from ~15 m depth and grown in nurseries established in Michmoret and Hazeva before being transplanted to selected sites at 4–6 m depth. Repeated transplant attempts during the first year were unsuccessful, likely due to environmental factors such as hydrodynamics or sediment movement, despite extensive mitigation efforts.

The project continues, with new collections underway and two additional nurseries established on the Mediterranean coast in Michmoret and Haifa. These nurseries involve high‑school students who maintain the systems and monitor plant growth. The overarching goal is to determine whether sustainable seagrass meadows can be established along Israel’s Mediterranean coast, acting as carbon sinks while reducing coastal erosion.