The Town of Bowers Beach, Delaware, is a low-lying coastal community experiencing increasing impacts from sea level rise, shoreline erosion, coastal flooding, and stormwater challenges. Historic mosquito ditching within the surrounding salt marshes altered natural hydrology and drainage patterns, creating additional flooding concerns throughout the community. To help address these challenges, the Town selected several priority recommendations from its resilience plan to advance into conceptual design and engineering. 

Verdantas is providing conceptual design and engineering services for a coordinated set of resilience initiatives focused on reducing flood risk while enhancing natural systems. The project includes restoration of approximately 86 acres of tidal salt marsh to improve hydrologic function, conceptual beachside flood mitigation measures designed to reduce erosion and strengthen protection from coastal storms, and improvements to the Hubbard Avenue seawall and adjacent stormwater drainage infrastructure to address localized flooding concerns. Together, these measures are designed to improve water movement across the landscape while helping the community prepare for future flood and storm events. 

By addressing flooding and coastal erosion from multiple sources simultaneously, the project will provide enhanced resilience to flooding and sea level rise. Integrating ecosystem restoration, coastal resilience, and stormwater management into a single planning effort enabled the development of solutions that support long-term environmental health while helping protect community assets and infrastructure.